Christmas Day 2008

Since the boys slept on the floor in our room, we were ALL up bright and early on Christmas morning. The boys were up by 6 am. The way we do it, stockings & donuts can happen as soon as they wake up, but we wait for everyone to do a big Christmas breakfast & open presents. So I snuck out quietly (Chris slept out on the pull-out sofa in the living room) and grabbed the kids stockings for them. It was hilarious to watch the two of them. Jacob dumped all of his out (practically) and then looked at it all. Josiah pulled things out one by one and examined each individual item for 5 minutes before moving on (exactly how I do it). It was a riot!

Josiah displaying his new Star Wars toothbrush (from someone at our church!). It plays the Star Wars theme song for 2 minutes while you brush!!

Mom found this old Superman DVD for Josiah - it has the OLD episodes from the cartoon - he has loved it!

Kristen put "Fun Dips" in the kids stockings - even Callie's! Do you remember this candy? It's a candy stick that you can lick, and then dip into a packet of flavored sugar. They ALL loved it!!!

Josiah's first lick of a Fun Dip. (What kind of mother would let her children eat that stuff at 6 am???)

Eating their snowmen donuts from Krispy Kreme!

Playing with their new race track...they were so excited about this! This was another one of those "blessing gifts" that one of our dear friends gave to us. It was something the boys loved playing with at their house, and they gifted it to us. Thank you!

FINALLY, the rest of the family woke up! Poor Chris probably had no idea what to think of us and our craziness! But he took part in the stocking fun too!

Here's Callie getting into her stocking. She got new hair shampoo (since she's the only kid with hair!), some socks, and some care bear fruit snacks (HUGE hit). I was shocked that she seemed to "get" the whole stocking idea - she kept reaching in, pulling things out, and oohing and aahing over them. It was hilarious. The only sad thing was that I forgot to dress her in the cutey pie Christmas jammies the night before for all these pictures. Oh well.

Callie showing my mom her new shampoo (and yes, there's Josiah eating ANOTHER fun dip...oh my word!)

While the boys seemed to eat Fun Dips all morning, Callie ate who knows how many packages of fruit snacks! I had a house full of people that would NOT say no to this girl!

Mom was reading The Polar Express to Callie, and Jacob was working on a Froot Loops necklace.

David working on the coolest stocking present ever from my Mom. She got him and Chris both these ridiculously hard Dot to Dot books. They are the coolest! You can sort of see from this picture. The numbers go up into the THOUSANDS! The boys were completely enthralled!

Kristen and Callie working on a masterpiece together. (All 4 of us girls in the Maxfield took piano lessons of course, but Kristen is the best of all of us. It was so fun hearing her play again).

Callie got some new cookware for her kitchen from Christmas (from my sweet running partner at church...) The pots & pans even came with a potholder!

Chris helping out Josiah with his new light sabre....it was very helpful having another guy around to help with all the toys!

Jacob's face - I love this boy!

Kristen got Callie a Cabbage Patch doll. It smells just like I remember mine smelling - sort of like baby powder...and I swear I remember the pattern of the clothes too (the little rosebuds).

My dad got Jacob an Indiana Jones whip. Good grief - this was the one thing that Jacob requested...and I have no idea how he even knows what it is. He must have seen a commercial for it. It makes the "whipping" sound, and plays the theme song from Indiana Jones...pretty hilarious.

Not sure what in the world my little modest girl was doing here....

Some anonymous angel at the YMCA gave these shirts to my boys (along with the earlier-pictured light sabres). We were so blessed. You can see that they quickly took off their adorable Christmas shirts (Courtney - we LOVED those shirts and got SOOOO many compliments all month long on them) and put the Star Wars on. It had a little Yoda at the bottom of the shirt that lit up and everything!

Shortly after this, my camera died. It was so sad. Kristen had her camera and took up the burden of all the picture taking from here on. The last present that was opened was opened by Josiah (and Jacob, but he really wasn't paying attention...he was playing with one of his new toys). It was a card that said on the outside "Inside is a picture of...." and then you open it up and it said "our new baby". I put our ultrasound picture inside. He was sitting next to my mom when he opened it and read it, so they both got VERY excited! It was fun to finally let them in on our little secret (we were 9 weeks along on Christmas morning). Also that morning, my other sister in Florida (Kelli) opened their ultrasound results that they had saved and discovered their new baby that is due in April is going to be a BOY! So there was much celebrating!

Kristen has promised to send me pictures from the rest of Christmas, but we really had a wonderful time. We loved getting to know Chris a little bit, and had fun just being together. We even went ice skating outside (again, something the Floridians got a kick out of). What a wonderful Christmas it was. We were so overwhelmed by the blessings and love that was poured out on our kids. We seriously didn't buy any presents this year, and yet you never would have known it. All our needs were met, some special blessings given to our kids that made them smile so brightly. We were all together celebrating the birth of our Saviour. A happy and healthy family. What more could I have asked for?