happy birthday, Jesus!

waking up at our house on christmas morning was fun and not too overwhelming. we started off the morning with cinnamon rolls for breakfast. as is our tradition on the kids' birthdays, we lit birthday candles and sang "happy birthday" to Jesus. the kids thought this was so cool, especially because they remember doing it for caroline not too long ago. ethan was really ready to open presents after breakfast, so we headed into the living room to open the last few presents under our tree. (these are the ones he'd been eyeing for the last several days!) there was one to each of them from each other, one to each of them from daddy & mommy, and one to each of them from amelia (complete with "special delivery" to/from tags! oh the little details no one notices...especially 2 & 3 year olds!).

ethan and i had gone shopping earlier for a present for caroline, and it was interesting to hear his ideas of what he thought he should buy for her. his list included a police car, a bulldozer, and some other things that he just so happened to like. :) i really emphasized the point that we were thinking about caroline and not himself. in the end, he agreed on a camera that i knew she would enjoy. he was SO excited to come right home and give it to her, so when i told him that we had to wait until christmas for her to open it, he was incredibly disappointed. after a few minutes of pitching a good ole' fit, i came to understand that it was not out of brotherly love that he wanted to give his gift to her right away... it was because he wanted to play with the camera. so this was a good lesson in unselfishness and delayed gratification for ethan. (i didn't actually take caroline shopping for ethan this year... i guess we'll begin that at 3 years old. sounds good, huh? he did unwrap a present "from her", and mommy's choice of the veggietales dvd was a winner.) below, you can see ethan wrapping caroline's present. he loved helping with this, and i am actually shocked that he never told her what he picked out for her.


on christmas morning, ethan was so cute as he anticipated caroline opening the present from him. he was in "big brother" mode and was just simply adorable. as you can see, caroline was so excited about the camera!


ethan was pleasantly surprised to find a camera for him in his goodies from amelia! look at my budding photographers...


and ethan's still snapping away as caroline unwraps her wooden zoo train from mommy & daddy. yes, we needed one more train, didn't we? but this one is so cute with cars for the animals, and it makes a cute little train noise... and it's a good thing that ethan's present from us was more wooden track for all these trains!


so after we opened up these presents, the kids thought that was it. they played for awhile, and then we told them it was time to get ready to go to nana & pappy's. brian snuck in the backyard with the camera, and i got the kids' shoes on. then i pretended to look for brian. we couldn't find him in the house, but the kids found our back door propped open. they peeked outside to find brian standing there with the camera, and they didn't even notice the surprise behind him. (they just love their daddy that much!)

"there's daddy! we found him!"

"yes, now look behind daddy!"

and then they saw their brand new swing set! oh happy day! finally something other than one baby swing to share! and a slide longer than ethan's body length! the kids were so excited. there is plenty on this set to keep them busy as they grow, and i love that it has room for us to hang our baby swing as well. this was one of those things that i researched to death and had a very hard time finding this time of year. (apparently, swing sets are a "summer item"... um, do you see my kids in t-shirts on christmas morning?!?! it's swing set weather all year round here, people!) the reviews for all of the ones we looked at were pretty horrible, mostly people just saying that the directions might as well have been in chinese and that you had to buy longer bolts to make them actually stay together, blah blah blah. well, being the positive thinker that i am, i knew brian could overcome bad directions and cheap hardware! he usually likes to buy higher quality hardware anyway, especially where the safety of our children is concerned. i read all the reviews and wrote down all the complaints that people had so that he would know what to watch out for. and i think that helped. i wouldn't say we ran in to major problems, but there were a few times that things could have gone a little smoother. :) plus i am pretty tool-stupid, and i was his trusty assistant, so i don't really know if i was much help! ha! but it was fun to sneak out in the backyard during a few of the kids' naps and work on our secretive project together. (yes, i skipped my naps. this was a true labor of love!) for a while, if we were talking about it in front of the kids, we'd just spell it, like "when do you want to work on the s-w-i-n-g-s-e-t?" it got pretty comical after a while because we were talking about it all the time. finally, brian decided to call it "project s" to save us some breath. :) i told you he was smart! so "project s" was a success. the kids had no idea that there was any big christmas surprise from mommy and daddy in the backyard. and i loved it that way. they were truly surprised! we still need to concrete it in the ground (once i decide once and for all where i want it!), but for now, they're not going high enough to do any damage. as long as mommy & amelia don't try to sit on anything, everything is sturdy as can be! :) i accidentally deleted the pictures of the whole swing set from christmas morning, but here are a couple of close up shots of the kids (and daddy) enjoying some fresh air on their new swing set. thank you, brian, for all of your hard work putting this together! i'm so proud that we weren't out there at midnight on christmas eve with flashlights trying to finish up! that's a christmas miracle, huh!?



so there is a peek into christmas morning at our house. after we peeled the kids off the swing set, we headed over to nana & pappy's for the final round of christmas! and boy was it a good one!! that's comin' up next!