0600 hours

That's what time my kids woke up Christmas morning.  (6 am in civilian terms) It was actually later that I had expected, so I was okay with that.  I told them we wouldn't go out to the living room until 6:30 so they all crawled in bed with me.  I was trying to trick them into going back to sleep when Nate suddenly yells, "HEY!  It's 6:37."  So out we went.

Luke saw his bike and immediately went for it.  He probably would have been happy if he hadn't opened anything else.  But oh were there toys.  Luke probably had the most of anyone because he's still little enough to love toys.  And they're inexpensive.  So every time I was out wondering what to get the kids, I'd see something Luke would like and pick it up.

He got a lot of imaginext toys.  Superheros costumes, toys. . . The giant castle was from Nate and Sadie.

Jake and the Neverland Pirates (scored that as a Black Friday deal AFTER Black Friday -- someone had shoved it back behind a bunch of toys though).

Sadie got mostly art supplies and book making kits.  That's pretty much what she spends all of her spare time doing.  She did love her giant stuffed giraffe from Luke.

 

 At one point in time we were teasing her because she wasn't showing enough excitement.  We got this:

The most random gift I bought all year was Pinypon.  I don't know how it ended up on her list, but it did and after years of Polly Pockets, Hello Kitty, Squinkies and such I was really excited for a new toy.

Nate's big gift was an iPod touch.  He love loves it.  He's already downloaded a million games on it.  He only got ONE set of Legos and he didn't even put them together until the day after Christmas because he was so busy with everything else. 

Skylanders for the Wii was a huge hit.  I think the neighborhood kids were over here for 3 days straight playing it.

And of course his basketball hoop.  It was kind of a good year for Nate.

One of my favorite Christmas break activities has been watching the kids play basketball.  Especially when Dustin played basketball against our friend Tim who is 6' 7".

Ellie got typical girl stuff: decor for her room, boots, clothes and purses. 

She got an iTouch as well.  It's funny to see the differences in the kids.  Ellie mainly uses hers to take photos, facetime and text with friends/cousins.

And let's not forget her giant stuffed bear that she's been wanting for 4 years.  I finally gave in because she's only going to be little for so much time until she outgrows silly stuff like this.

I finally got a growth board for our family.  Ellie's been using our wall so it's nice to have something she can actually write on.

 

Baked french toast for breakfast, candy for lunch and take out for dinner.  It was a very low key Christmas.

After all was said and done, my living room looked something like this:

I did manage to get it all picked up, all the rooms straightened and Christmas taken down the next day.  After another week of break everyone's rooms are a disaster again.  Merry Christmas!!