Merry Christmas 2011

 

Our Christmas day was very low-key and relaxed. The girls got up around 7 a.m., went downstairs to collect their stockings, then came upstairs and went through their little gifts on our bed while Tuell and I were waking up. Then it was time for breakfast and presents! I found it interesting how things change through the years; each year seems to be calmer than the last, still exciting but now the excitement is more contained. They still really enjoy opening presents, but they each seemed to focus on just one gift at a time rather than rushing to open them all. In fact, we had to encourage them several times to move on to the next gift, so it wouldn't drag on for hours.

The "big" gifts this year weren't really big, but since we got a total of four, they were the main focus. Each of the girls, and Tuell, got a remote controlled car, and they had fun driving around trying not to run into each other. Good thing Melaina's was well built, because she couldn't control it very well and kept running it full-speed into the wall.

Avalie has really been into singing lately, so she was so excited that Santa brought her a karaoke machine. She can plug in her iPod and sing right along. Even Livian wanted to play with it! We pretty much had a week-long concert at our house that week.

Livian just continues to amaze me. She loves making gifts for people, and this year she made me a kitty out of cardboard boxes and tubes. You pull on his tongue, and written on the tongue is a daily fortune. So cute! She says I'm supposed to tear off one part of the tongue a day (it's a super long strip of pink paper all rolled up inside), but so far I haven't gotten up the courage to tear it yet. It's too cute!

Of course, I had to give her a BIG juicy kiss to thank her!

Our final gift was to the whole family -- an iPad! We are all loving our new toy, and unbelievably there has been very little fighting over it so far! (Maybe because they can't pry it out of Mommy's hot little hands...?)