Christmas Day

My kids never cease to amaze me. Each year I think it's going to be the year that they wake up at 4am and wake us up too. But so far it's never happened. I certainly wasn't as good to my parents. Last night we told the kids we did not want to get up before 7am and sure enough they quietly woke us up at 7am on the dot and before then we hadn't heard a peep out of them. I had made up my mind that I wanted to just play with the kids and enjoy the day without spending hours in the kitchen so we purposely made more food yesterday when we had friends over to eat with us, play games and celebrate. There were tons of leftovers.

It was a lovely morning. We opened presents and all got what we wanted. Gary built legos and more legos with the boys. Leia and I baked cakes in her Easy Bake Oven. We web cammed and spoke with family. Nathan could NOT tear himself away from his Nintendo DS.

At about 2pm Gary was looking a little stiff from all the building and I was feeling a little green from all the foods containing cream cheese and sour cream, not to mention the chocolate I got in my stocking, and the honey baked ham. So we decided to take a walk to the park so Nathan could try out his new scooter and Spencer could drive his RC monster truck. The weather here is consistently great and I don't think (for an English girl) that I will ever get tired of sunshine in the middle of winter. We all felt much better afterwards and it gave us some extra steam to clean up all the mess. And boy was there a mess. We were knee deep in it.

Once the mess was cleaned, Leia and I played Guess Who, the boys and Gary played Operation and then I got the trifle ready. Nathan and Oliver went to bed exhausted and Gary, Leia, Spencer and I have been eating trifle and watching Bedknobs and Broomsticks. I now feel exhausted. I never sleep well the night before Christmas as I am excited for the kids. The hot tub is calling my name. It will be the ideal way to finish off the day.

Here are some pictures:

Before the carnage. Doesn't it look exciting?

Black Cherry trifle.

Spencer at the playground with his car.

Off walking.

Leia in a new sweater and hat outside the front door, waiting to go on the walk.

Oliver waiting to go on the walk with his new musical toy.

Legos.

Microscope from Nan and Grandad Foster.

Ooooh, what do I do with this?

Leia's ready to get on the plane tomorrow!

As soon as Nathan opened up his DS he was lost to us.

Pure delight!

Scrapbooking, no REALLY!

Look at that face. I could eat him up.

Oliver discovers the fun of a stocking.