Christmas

Christmas morning Travis and I woke up pretty early. About 7:30 I was in the hall and heard Carson say to Avery, "Avery! It's not dark anymore!" I guess that was the cue for them to come out.
First things, first: "Look! Santa really came, he ate the cookies!" So it's the missing cookies and not the hordes of presents under the tree that tell you that, Avery?


Before anyone could open anything, we had to have breakfast. Travis made Avery a snowman:


Um, I'm not actually sure what he made Carson, a teddy bear?


And then he called me in for mine and look what my sweetheart made me!


Finally, after Mom had to take a pesky picture, it was time. The volume of presenst under that tree are obscene. My parents had a huge part in swelling the mass. I think they enjoyed being able to give without worrying how much could fit in suitcases as was the inhibitor the last four years.


Emmett was slower to eat than the rest of us, so we started opening without him. This is him calling to tell us he's ready to join in the fun.


It's funny how a new baby gift can be so interesting to older boys...


I made my Mom this bag (as you can see, red is her favorite color) and one in the same colors for myself while I was at it! I was so proud of my little sewing skills that I wrapped mine up too for me to open. I know, silly, but I felt good about it!


Grandma and Grandpa got the boys each a new monster truck. They're great! They don't want to stop even when they hit a wall.


Time to check out the stocking loot!


This was a cute moment because Emmett kept pushing the button that would play the truck's radio and he was bopping his head along, thoroughly enjoying the tunes.


Carson checking out my new mirror


After our Christmas morning, we all went to Travis' parents' house. My Mom really enjoyed holding Kevin and Katrina's little Julie


Emmett always likes checking in on Julie too.


Travis, Avery and Carson stayed at the Hunsaker's while Mom, Dad and I took Emmett home for a nap and to prepare our part of Christmas dinner.
That evening after an excellent Christmas dinner, Carson had a serious discussion about coloring with Grandpa Benjamin


And Travis tried out his new remote control rock crawler.

Ben also showed us all (Travis had seen it, having helped him move it) his latest purchase, a full size pop dispenser he's going to hook up out in his shop. It can hold pop cans, 20oz bottles or Snapple style bottles.

Since Christmas, we've found that one of the biggest hits of has been the many puzzles we bought for the boys. Carson especially is quite the puzzler.
The monster trucks, 150 piece wooden block set, more Transformers and Transformer bedding for Avery, Carson's own Transformer, and a big dinosaur for each boy have also been great.
Another love was the blu-ray set of Planet Earth I got for Avery, Planet Earth being one of his favorite things to watch. P.S., if anyone's interested, we got the BBC version at Costco for half the price of the Discovery version. The only difference is it's an English chap narrating instead.
Travis (and the rest of us, frankly) are loving his new PS3, especially since that means we now have a blu-ray player and the Netflix streaming is a great bonus.
I am loving L.O.V.I.N.G. my new lens so Travis did a good job with that one (although he knew I thought if money was to be spent on me I wanted that or nothing at all.)

Another hit gift has some background: Avery's best stuffed friend is Monkey, and Carson's is Curious George, so I thought it only right that Emmett have his own monkey. He hadn't yet attached to any stuffed friend, so we went through the stuffed animals that have been put away since Milwaukee and found 3 monkeys that none of the boys probably even remember. All three were put in a box for Emmett and I hoped he would find one interesting and attach. Hallelujah, my plan worked. He definitely chose one, the smallest one in fact, over the others and he's definitely attached to it since then.

What a GREAT Christmas!