Christmas Comes but Once a Year, and Now it's Here, and Now it's Here!

We love this Christmas song that began as a tradition on Christmas Day by Brady's grandfather.  We sing it with the kids before we leave their bedrooms.

Before we let the kids come downstairs, we took pictures of what Santa left combined with the presents we wrapped.

Kate:

Owen:

Zachary:

The kids thought it was so funny that Blitzen was a carrot-hog.

Zac got a "Weird but True" book in his stocking and read it to us all morning.

Kate tied Zachary in Christmas expressions this year!

The kids woke up Owen at 7am for unwrapping gifts and he was in a fog.  He kept asking, "Is this for ME?"

He was chipper after his "coffee":

We opened up Santa gifts, then ate breakfast and played with the neighbors' new toys.

We finally convinced the kids to come back in and finish unwrapping.  Kate declared the mermaid tail her most favorite gift.

From G&G Nufer:

From G&G Edwards, a charm necklace with a "K":

From G&G Edwards, a truck he can assemble with a "power tool":

From G&G Nufer.  Kate said, "WHAT?!  HOW DID THEY KNOW???"

Oh, yeah, we scored with this remote-controlled car.

G&G Edwards win for the best gift of Christmas.  Zac and I played this game for a solid 90 minutes that day.  It is seriously fun.

G&G Nufer stocked our kids up with books this year.  He reads books over and over and this year I finally decided it was worth owning chapter books after donating most of mine years ago.  Books do not keep well in our humid environment, but they do not have to when you read them a dozen times in a few years.

Our neighbors donated many American Girl items to Kate.

Nic and Heidi won for best presentation.  They left this beautiful monstrosity in our garage.

Present 1:

Present 2:

Polite smile:

Present 3 (a present that made Owen's Christmas): Lucky Charms.

Present 4 was a gift card to our favorite dinner and ice cream.

The Stomp Rocket makes another Edwards appearance.  This is our third time buying it and every child has loved it.

The jumping pictures crack me up.

Our backyard landscaping is super impressive, huh?

Finally, finally, finally, Owen gets to ride his Jeep!  We put it on the slow setting while he figured out how to maneuver it and we've kept it at that speed.  Owen feels like an independent kid who does not actually need supervision.  He has come downstairs straight from his bed, opened the garage, and "driven" down the street.  Slow is good.

Owen x 2:

We finished Christmas with several hours at Sheratons.  I was the only person that actually wanted to go to the beach but the family was loving it as soon as we got there.  We each caught up with our families, too, and it was a lovely, sunny afternoon with friends and family.

Mele Kalikimaka!