Our family pic:
(I feel the need to comment on the puffiness of my face, and whole body really. This pregnancy has been the hardest on me physically. Because of the position of this little one, I developed varicose veins that I was fortunate enough to avoid with the other pregnancies. They have been painful and have resulted in a lot of extra fluid retention all over. At this time, I was about 33 weeks pregnant ... but was feeling even bigger).
Lots of smiles from the girls after opening their gifts:
Jack was just as excited and took a few minutes in between to play with his toys:
One of his favorite gifts was a Spiderman shovel from Aunt Deb. It became obvious very early on that we needed to move him and his shovel out of our confined circle or there might be some damage. Now, we just need a little bit of snow ...
Samantha received a new MSU shirt from her cousin, Amberlee, and put it on immediately.
And the BEST gift?! Jack got his own battery-operated chainsaw from Grandpa!
We arrived home around 7:45 pm, but the youngest one in our brood was already done in from his celebrating with no nap:
We woke Jack up from his mini-snooze and then let the kids sprinkle their Reindeer Food in the front yard.
The girls paced themselves and spread the food all around the front yard. Jack did one big dump of his Reindeer Food and then moved on.
Afterwards, we headed inside so that the kids could open their new pajamas from Steve and me -- our annual tradition.
Fresh pajamas for Christmas morning!
Samantha was most excited because her package contained a matching nightgown for her American Girl doll (which was mine when I was younger):
The last part of their evening involved putting cookies out for Santa:
Santa and his elves went to work that night putting out all of the presents and filling the stockings. They finally went to bed around 11 pm ... tired, but excited about the next morning.
Jack was up by 6:45 am the next morning -- with his chainsaw in tow -- so we settled him in to watch a show, while we waited for the girls to get up.
We began with stockings in the back family room:
Jack is getting really good at ripping open the paper on packages, especially since Santa makes sure to wrap everything in the stockings!
Sophia only asked Santa for one item this year -- an American Girl doll. And she got it! I would like you to meet Mary Ellen Larkin.
Jack's favorite gifts were a new Nerf gun (with extra darts):
A set of construction trucks (he can name all of them):
And a hammer -- the one thing that he asked Santa for:
Samantha received a camping set for her American Girl doll and some new clothes for her, as well.
At lunchtime, my family came over and we feasted on ham and all of the fixings. It was a casual day -- just as I requested. And the best part was that the weather was nicer than we ever remember it being ... perfect for travel.
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