A Wonderful Christmas

We had a wonderful Christmas. In their usual tradition, Emily had a sleepover in Ethan's room so they could wake up together on Christmas morning. After they were asleep, I went in and plugged in the baby monitor so we could hear when they woke up. We like to do that because we love to hear the chatter they do in the morning before they come out of the room. And they didn't disappoint. Emily woke up first. It was shortly after 6:00 a.m., and she quickly woke up her brother. We could hear her saying, "Ethan it's Christmas! Wake up! I think Santa came!" Then they were talking about checking to see if he had come or not and we heard them peek out into the living room. The door closed again and then they started talking. We always crack up because it is ALWAYS Emily who comes up with the ideas of what they are going to do on Christmas morning. She said to Ethan, "Let's look out your window and see if we can see the reindeer on any of the roofs." And that was when my heart just melted. Oh, to have that kind of wonder and magic still in your heart. They both got up and looked outside and you could just hear her getting excited again. The carrots that they had left out for the reindeer had been half eaten and just thrown around the yard. [wink-wink] Those silly reindeer sure are messy.

Suddenly, we had two little children running into our room. Along the way we heard them shouting out things like "He ate the cookies!" "He took the presents we made for him!" "Look! Santa ate my candy cane I gave him, too!" The kids then were all smiles and standing next to our bed. Rob and I managed to drag ourselves out of bed and get a pot of coffee made as we started the paper tearing frenzy. Their gifts from us this year were...

Ethan: a Land Shark scooter, roller skates from Santa, Raiders of the Lost Ark movie, a couple of video games (one for the Wii and one for the DS), a Nerf Dart Tag set, and a Bug Habitat.

Emily: her very own pink mp3 player with an iDog speaker, roller skates from Santa, Littlest Pet Shop toy, scooter, a pink Lego set, a stationery stamp set, and a Hannah Montana Playhut stage.

It was a wonderful Christmas and the kids were thrilled with everything they received! We spent the day yesterday trying out the new scooters. We went to my parents' house for Christmas dinner and ate way too much. By mid afternoon, Emily ended up getting one of her headaches. I was really hoping that we'd dodge that bullet, but no such luck. She passed out and ended up sleeping for FIVE HOURS!!! She woke up at 8:30pm and was then wide awake. She was roller skating through the house at 11:30 last night because she still wasn't sleepy. By midnight, I told her that she needed to go back to bed. When I was tucking her in she told me that she hated that she had to have a headache on Christmas. I hated it, too.

Today was a perfect family day for us. The kids went scooter riding in the neighborhood while I walked Marley. A little while later we traded in the scooters for the bikes and all four of us went for a bike ride. Then a couple of hours were spent just hanging out in the driveway riding the Land Shark and scooter and then playing a game of catch with Ethan's new ball glove that he got from cousin Chase. Ethan and I decided to shoot some hoops, too, and I am impressed with his basketball skills. He and I are really able to get out there and PLAY basketball. Then we got out the roller skates. At first the kids were very scared to go out in the driveway and do this. By the time we were finished with it outside, Ethan was starting to do it on his own. And as I sit typing this, Ethan is skating like a pro through the house. He told me that he is even ready for the races at the skating rink. Emily is even going on the kitchen floor on her own, but she is much more cautious. After we were finished skating earlier today, we then got out Ethan's Nerf Dart Tag game. I'm sure our neighbors got a very good laugh at us! It was the boys against the girls. Oh my goodness! This game is fun!!! It is total and complete war!! And I'm thinking that the boys had an unfair advantage against the girls in this family since one of the boys in our family is actually in the military and has actually BEEN in a war before. But thanks to Emily, who is the little smarty pants in our operation, she was the one who ran around and collected all of our "bullets" and then stockpiled them all under a bush for us. It was so cute. It was all her idea, too. It was a good one until Ethan found our stash.

We just had a fantastic day today as a family and just enjoyed being together and playing together. Tomorrow morning we will go to church and then I'm sure it will more of the same as today as long as the weather holds out.

And the best part of all today is that Emily had NO HEADACHE!!!! She was able to enjoy every last second of the day without being in pain.

Before I close my post, I need to say a VERY special thank you to "Santa Claus" for the letter that he sent us in the mail. I was brought to tears today!