Christmas Day

Christmas Eve was not pretty for me, as I spent the ENTIRE night throwing up.  Yay for the stomach flu.  Thankfully Steve was feeling up to the task of readying the kids for Christmas morning, including putting out the reindeer food and treats for Santa.  He even helped Garrett leave a note of apology to Santa, because in his excitement Garrett ate all of the carrots that were left out for the reindeer.

Molly has been known to be a "little" excited about Christmas morning and this year we gave her explicit instructions that she was not allowed to get out of her room before 6:30 a.m.  So, when she showed up by our bedside at 5:50 a.m. she was sent straight back to bed, just to return at 6:29 a.m.  Needless to say she was REALLY excited to see that Santa did indeed show up.  She had to wait almost a whole 45 minutes before Garrett and Paige woke up!  They are allowed to open their stockings and Santa gifts before breakfast, so they were very excited to find out that Santa gave them all scooters this year.  Needless to say they did laps around the house on them all day!

Then I made breakfast for everyone... cinnamon rolls, scrambled eggs and sausage.  The irony of that is that I still could only really stomach a little bowl of cereal, so all that yumminess was wasted on me.  After breakfast we finished opening the onslaught of gifts.  It was such a joy to watch the kids enjoy each and every gift that they opened.

And of course, we had to finish of the gift opening with a jump in the pile of wrapping paper!

Even Mommy and Daddy got spoiled!  Steve got a keyboard to go with his tablet, and a new drill set.  And I got a smart phone and a GORGEOUS teal leather camera bag that I love!

So despite the stomach flu, it was a wonderful and relaxing day spent enjoying our gifts and spending time together as a family.  Unfortunately Steve did indeed get the flu as well the day after Christmas, but even he will agree the quiet time was priceless.