Christmas - Part Deux

Okay - back to Christmas:

Sunday morning the kids awoke before I headed to church and BEGGED to please be allowed to open their stockings. So, we had a quick round of that gift opening and we tortured them further by discontinuing any unwrapping until I returned 2 hours later.

But, I was barely through the door and allowed to change before we were heading downstairs to finish up the last of the Christmas unwrapping. Now, our kids hadn't actually been downstairs since our new coffee table arrived and when Jake rounded the corner and saw it he yelled, "SANTA BROUGHT US FURNITURE!!"

We take turns opening gifts so we can see everyone's reaction as well as have all the attention when it's our turn. Honestly, I think the kids actually like it - they are always pushing for their present to be next and have fun explaining how they chose it if there is a good story behind their pick. And honestly, they are so used to it by now that there's never really any arguing about the pace that things move.

This year the big presents were a "Fur Real Cat" for Maddie and an MP3 player for Jake. Mike and I were unsure about this cat thing, but Maddie really does like it and "Angel" has made it to sleeping in her bed at night - as long as she's shut off. Because this thing meows at the slightest movement we had Maddie plug her ears and sing really loud while we moved it in front of her, and then keep singing loudly while she opened it so she wouldn't hear it. We thought we were so smart and that this would get us around never getting a real pet - no allergies, no poop, no shedding...no - wait on that last one. The darn thing actually sheds! We have "cat fur" all over our new table.

Jake has barely taken his MP3 player off. He's very excited because now he has something to put in the pocket in his new jacket! (To which I told him he could happily use - as long as it wasn't a school day.)



So the Christmas celebrating comes to an official close. We'll leave the decorations up through the end of the year and hopefully hit a couple good sales this week to add to our Christmas stash!