Christmas Day!

We were hoping that by setting the kids' clock back an hour and using a little Christmas magic that our kids might sleep in on Christmas morning. And "sleeping in" at our house is 7:00. Alas, all 4 kids were up by 6:30, so our festivities started then. Luckily, 6:30 a.m. doesn't feel all that early when it's Christmas!

We got our traditional picture on the stairs before coming down.

(Boy do I look tired.... it was mostly due to waking up with a horrible cold and headache/impending migraine).

The stockings

A picture of all the gifts, all pretty and wrapped

Santa brought all 4 kids a new, big kitchen to share. Leah and Lexi went straight for it as soon as they got downstairs. They loved it.

Mitchell and Chloe both got umbrellas in their stockings. They are obsessed with umbrellas and we get plenty of rain around here to put them to good use.

Chloe got a Beverly Cleary book set from me and Ben. She and I love reading together, so I thought it would be fun to have some "big girl" books to read together. We have currently finished two of the "Ramona Quimby" books and are loving them. My mom used to read chapter books with me on a regular basis and it is one of my favorite memories of growing up and I'm excited to share this tradition with Chloe.

Mitchell, with help from Leah, opening his Black & Decker tool set. A very cool toy.

Lexi wanted to sit with Aunt Bethany all morning. She is sporting the things Santa brought her. Her and Leah's favorite thing in their stocking was the container of teddy grahams.

One of Leah and Lexi's gifts from us was new, big girl carseats. (Actually, there was only one new one and the other one was Mitch's old carseat). With only one to open and use that day, there was lots of fighting over it. They did not enjoy sharing it. Both wanted to sit in it all by themselves.

Opening gifts was fun for the babies, but it took forever for them to open anything. Good thing they had a very anxious older brother and sister to help.

Our messy living room after all the gifts were opened.

Bethany is holding my favorite gift of the year- a family history scrapbook made by my parents. It has my pedigree chart and my parents' pedigree charts, along with pictures and names of my ancestors. What a priceless gift that I will treasure forever. It was so neat to look through the book at relatives that I have never seen pictures of. It was also fun to see pictures of some of my kids' namesakes, and my namesakes, and see if there was any resemblance between any relatives and any of us. I was named after my great grandma, Maude Carrie Ostwalt. (Whew... I lucked out on getting Carrie, rather than Maude!)

After gifts, I made our traditional cherry breakfast cake for breakfast and we sang happy birthday to Jesus.

This shot shows a typical Leah move. She eats like a bird. Somedays I can only get her to eat 2 or 3 bites at a meal. She will sign "All Done" to me and I'll get her out, and then she'll walk over to Lexi's high chair and start eating off her tray. This is what she did Christmas morning. Funny thing is, they always have the same things on their trays, but apparently Lexi's identical food tastes much better.

The rest of the day was spent lounging, napping, watching movies, eating, and playing with all the new toys. I love Christmas Day. It really is my favorite day of the whole year.

Mitchell's tool bench was everyone's favorite toy. The babies toddled over to it and acted like they had used a drill press and miter saw their entire life. It was hilarious.

Chloe, relaxing with her Leapster Explorer game

Mitchell also got a new carseat- a big boy one. He was excited to try it out later in the afternoon.

Not only did the babies get new, big girl carseats, they also got to sit forward facing for the first time ever. They have been in their infant car seats until now. My other two kids grew out of their infant carrier seats at 5 months old. For these two to still be in them at 14 months was an Andros record.

They seemed pretty pleased to be forward facing- a completely new view, and it is nicer that when I need to hand them a snack while we are driving that I can easily hand it to them without reaching over their carriers. I did have mixed feelings about being done with their infant carriers- they have kind of been a lifesaver with twins. Costco is the only store with carts that buckle two kids, so every where else I went I had to put one baby in the back of the cart in their carseat. And in the carrier seats, getting them in and out of the car was easy- no unbuckling to rebuckle in a cart. Fast and easy. But... they were getting awfully heavy to carry more than 3 steps in those seats. The two of them together were over 40 pounds. My daily workout, really.

Chloe got the game Connect 4 from Mitchell for Christmas and everyone had a great time playing it all day.

The day flew by much too quickly. It's always a let down for me when the day is over, because it's 365 more days until Christmas Day again.

We were super sad to see Aunt Bethany leave the day after Christmas- we just loved having her and the visit went by much too quickly. She spoiled all the kids with her attention. Thanks for coming to visit, Beth.

What a fun Christmas it was with these two little buggers. I have said this before- Christmas with kids is the best!

Here are the twins last Christmas- boy how they've grown and changed! Christmas with a tiny baby is so sweet, but Christmas with toddlers is really fun. They didn't understand anything that was going on, but they were so happy all day to just toddle around, play with wrapping paper and check out everyone's toys.

Funny side story: On the way to drop off Bethany at the airport Sunday evening, I gave the twins suckers to keep them occupied for the ride. Leah started crying on the way home and I couldn't find her sucker anywhere. When we got her out of her car seat at home, we found the sucker... oops.

We had such a wonderful Christmas. Now that Christmas is over, I can't wait for summer!