Christmas Eve Afternoon--Start Here for Your Recaps

I've already blogged about the morning time and our festive brunch and the golf cart...but there's still the rest of the day to discuss.

Once Dalton finally was woken up from his late nap, we bundled up and headed out for some cruisin' in the golf cart:


Eastie's still kinda getting the hang of steering well and staying on the sidewalk. It wasn't too bad, I guess I just have higher expectations. :) We weren't out long at all, it was too chilly, and we came in to warm up. Easton asked for some hot chocolate. This is two seconds before he spilled most of it on himself and the floor:


Jason played a few songs on the guitar and Easton grabbed a tambourine and a marraca and we had a "Rockin' Around the Christmas Tree" and "Jingle Bell Rock" sing-a-long. Good times! We also did a little Play-Doh and coloring:








After awhile we decided to let the boys open their one Christmas Eve gift. It's become a tradition to open one gift, and it's always been one from The Alabamaws. This year was no exception. Dalton scored a Baby Elmo with a "Ba Ba":


And Easton got a big Batman action figure...his wings pop out and he has a Batarang he flings:




We got smarter this year and let the boys open their gifts before dinner rather than afterwards where we're like, "Oh cool. Okay, time for bed". This time they got plenty of time to play while I made our Christmas Eve spaghetti dinner. The boys always have to be nakey when we eat spaghetti:








While we cleaned up after dinner, the boys went to play some more with their new toys. We just happened to find them sweetly playing like this:


So cute!


Before long it was time to head up for bed, but not before setting out milk and cookies for ol' St. Nick:




Easton has been asking for weeks to be allowed to sleep in Baby Dalton's room. For Christmas Eve we finally let him. Growing up, my sisters and I always slept in the same room on Christmas Eve, even when I was, like, 20 and Ben was in there with us all. Fun tradition. And the boys started with this Christmas Eve as well. E brought up his new Batman and tucked him in on the Noel pillow on the floor next to his mat:


Then both boys hopped in the sleeping bag for their story, song, and our prayers:


Dalton was having a hard time settling down:


Giving Bubba a good night hug:


We turned out the light and I rocked with Diddles for a bit before saying good night to both of them. It seemed like it was going well, Dalton was in his crib, E was here:


But around 4 a.m. Easton called and I put him in his bed. In the morning he let us know that Dalton's clock was taking too long to get to 7:00. He wanted to be in his room where the clock apparently runs at a more normal speed.

Jason and I did some prep around the tree, loaded up the car with gifts for the extended family, drank some sparkling cider, and called it a night at a very reasonable hour.

Christmas Morning

The kids woke up around the same time as usual: 7:00 a.m. I hurried down to turn on the lights and the tree:


Our stockings were hung by the stairway with care, but then they get too heavy to keep hung so Santa puts them on the ground:


Then I went to greet the boys:


We took a quick family shot before heading on down:


Santa definitely does not wrap the presents at our house. And because our children currently only ask for one thing from Santa, it is easy to tell whose stash is whose. Easton noticed his Batcave (which he was totally expecting) and his Batman "soft friend" right away but was calm about it. They walked over to check out their stuff and Easton stopped to be excited for Dalton, "Dalton! Look! It's a Elmo!"


Then he moved on to his own toy:




He was pretty excited about it:


Actually, Dalton was too:




They played with their new stuff for quite a bit before Easton said, "I want to open my other presents now". However, next comes stockings, which he was fine with...he just doesn't have the order memorized just yet. He said he wanted Dalton to go first and brought his stocking over for him:


Dalton likes to check out each thing for awhile, and actually had a hard time letting go of the blue Batman from E's Batcave. You'll notice it in his hand or at least near him in many of our Christmas pictures. So, Dalton went from lap to lap:


And Eastie finally dug into his stocking while D was still going through his:




We're somewhat untraditional in that we really try not to do much candy in the stockings. The boys each got M&M's and that was it as far as candy. But E had little superhero figurines in his, D had "Cars" cars. They each had some festive Playdoh, some festive light spinny thingies, a book for each, bath stuff for each, a puppet for each... That sort of thing.

The boys checked out their loot while Jason and I went through our stockings:

J's was overflowing with stuff. I had even more stuff that I didn't even put in it. I think our store-bought stockings are a tad small.

Next it was time for presents I don't know if people want to know what the boys got or not? I'll just keep it to a few highlights, I guess. We don't all tear into the presents at once, we take turns, youngest to oldest this year. Easton knew of just a few presents that were for specific people so he brought Dalton a gift he'd picked out (before we knew he'd be shopping at school)...an Elmo puzzle:


And Easton had asked me to make sure to use Diego paper on his present (I guess he thought he was only getting one) and so he knew to grab the Diego papered one first thing where he scored a Spiderman shaving/shower kit. He loves to shave in the shower with Jason and now he has a more offical looking "razor" and his own little suction cup mirror. It's pretty cute:


More unwrapping:










Easton got a couple of board games, a Leapster, and some accessories for his Batcave which he'd take over to it right away to play with:


Dalton got some age appropriate toys like a shape sorter (that we re-gifted him from last year, shhhh!), a See and Say, and his most favorite and something that let him give up E's blue Batman was his set of Yo Gabba Gabba figurines. I thought I was taking a movie of all the excitement over it but turns out I didn't press the button hard enough, we were bummed because it was soooo cute. They're a huge hit:




After awhile we opened the presents from Easton. First I got to open a gift to the both of us, a snowman he'd decorated when I observed his class that one day with a little card that he'd made:


It had his little picture inside!


And for those of you that haven't seen his school picture yet, here's a better shot of it:


Next I got to open the little flower I already knew he'd gotten me:

Still, it was very touching and special and it's already in the vase in my room.

Jason was next...he got a "Pro Dad" football keychain:

I love that Easton thought of that. It's already holding J's keys together.

And then came Dalton. He got a little tiny Elmo pillow:


I think E did great!!!

J and I made out alright too. We're a little more practical these days but J got some "toys" for his music studio, some clothes, some silly stuff (like Cocoa Pebbles that E wanted to get him), some new pictures for his office...

I got a new jewelry box--my other one was from an ex, didn't match our furniture at all, and was kinda big. My biggest gift was a new set of pots and pans. See I told ya...practical. I got some new shirts and I got some snowboots:


However, to make up for our practical gifts The Alabamaws sent a totally fun gift:

That's right, the S's have a Wii now, folks. Thank you so much, Maws!!! I am a very good Wii bowler. My first game on the thing I bowled a 177. Today I bowled a 226.

Anyway, after every last present had been unwrapped my guys hung out to play a bit:


And I headed to the kitchen to make some French toast and sausage for breakfast. We played a bit more after we ate, Dalton headed up for a nap and the rest of us played a few rounds of Hi-Ho Cherry-O:




Then Easton headed up for some quiet time with his Batcave. He adores that thing. Therefore, so do we. It is pretty cool, I must say.

Dalton napped, the rest of us showered, E and J shaved... When Dalton woke up he was hysterically upset over his new sippy cups. Because he chews the soft ones to pieces we're trying to get him to take hard spouted ones. He wasn't having it. None of it. He was furious and it was both funny and sad and rather annoying. Eventually I got him to take some but sheesh. Once that happened we could move on with the rest of Christmas Day...