The Merriest Christmas Yet

Christmas this year was so much fun. Rachel is old enough to understand all about Christmas and believe in Santa, but she's still young enough that Christmas isn't all about the presents. She would have been happy with anything, and any number, of gifts. For her, Christmas this year has just been about the experience and excitement of it all. She was excited about the tree, the lights, Santa, Christmas books, treats, crafts, and anything else Christmas. Reed loved it all too, although he's still a little young to fully understand it all. But he was old enough to open presents on his own and enjoy all the fun things we did, too.

This is just a picture Rachel drew on the Magna-doodle, but it is noteworthy because this is the first time she's drawn a whole body of a person.

Having fun with Daddy. The kids get SO excited when Daddy comes home from work.

Reading books.

Okay, now we're into Christmas pictures. We decided to start a new tradition of sleeping on air mattresses on the floor of the tv room on Christmas eve eve (not on Christmas eve itself, because a good night's sleep is a necessity on Christmas eve). We read books and watched a movie. Reed fell asleep 20 minutes into the movie, but we had a lot of fun.

All ready for Christmas morning!

Mike and I were so excited for the kids to see their presents on Christmas morning. I think I was more excited than they were. The big presents this year were a train table (thank you Cyber Monday!) and a cool riding track thing.

Santa ate his cookies and milk and the reindeer ate his carrot. Rachel LOVED this. (And Mike didn't mind being Santa, either).

Opening presents.

Rachel got a new doll that she absolutely adores. She named it Candle. :)

Reed got a lot of cars and planes and helicopters.

The only thing Rachel asked Santa for was stickers, so she got this neat little tape roll with princess stickers.

This is Reed's "Say cheese" face. He's happy about his new Buzz Lightyear.

Weee! Both kids love this toy.

Playing with Buzz.

I insisted on getting this for the kids, the old school fishing game. They love it. They got several other games too that they really like playing.

Rachel in her Rapunzel dress putting on her very own lip gloss.

Reed likes Candle too.

Aw. :)

Construction.

Rachel got these horses from Meme and Pepe.

I love her imagination. She was pretending the horses were throwing a surprise birthday party for someone.

The kids also got a Doc McStuffins doctor kit from Papa. We've all had a lot of checkups the last couple days.

This was my present from Mike. I've seen this idea floating around Pinterest, but Mike actually didn't see it anywhere, he came up with it all on his own. I absolutely love it. Not sure what we'll do when/if we have more kids though...