Our Christmas

We had a very nice, albeit busy as usual, Christmas.  We got to see lots of family and actually felt a little less rushed this year than last year.  It started with Christmas Eve - we went to my parents' house in the early afternoon so we could exchange gifts with them before Jack's nap time.  They gave Jack (and Charlie of course) lots of fun new goodies, including a truck/trailer/fishing boat combo (just like Daddy's!), a remote control car, food for his grill (adding to the lone hot dog and hamburger he had before), and the Lion King DVD.  I've been collecting the Disney DVDs for the kids for years but hadn't opened any of them yet, assuming  Jack was still too young for a full-length movie.  Boy was I wrong!  As soon as he got up from his nap he wanted to watch the Lion King!  He didn't sit through the entire thing, but he was glued to the TV for at least half of it.  Turns out this was one of the top gifts because it got a LOT of use on our road trip the following week (more on that in the next post).

After Jack's nap, my mom's family came over for dinner.  As always it was great to see everyone!  We stopped exchanging gifts a few years ago with this family (we used to draw names) and now opt to donate to charity instead.  We do still buy gifts for the kids though, so Jack and Charlie got some nice gifts from my aunts & uncles and cousins.  We also got the best gift of all from Charlie...his first laugh!!  My cousin Stacie was holding him and I was talking to him and he started giggling away.  What a great little sound!  He's been demonstrating that sweet little noise for us ever since.

Happy guy in his swing

Stacie & Charlie

Trying out his new basketball hoop from my cousin Bryan, Katie, AJ and Payton

Charlie, Katie & Payton (he loved when they sang Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer to him!!)

Winding down for the night, and engrossed in the Lion King (again!)

 Christmas morning we had a nice 1/2 hour or so with just the four of us as Jack and Charlie opened their gifts from Santa and from us, and Jason and I exchanged a few small gifts.  Of course, Santa brought this cool new train table, so getting Jack to open additional presents was a little difficult:

Charlie got a Bumbo seat, which he tried out.  He kept slipping to the side, so for now I think he needs a blanket or towel to give him some extra support.  I think he's going to love his new view though!

Here are a few more pictures of our morning.

This one is actually the night before, after Santa came

Wow!  That's a lot of stuff!

After we opened all of our gifts, we went over to Uncle Todd & Aunt Cyndi's house to exchange gifts with Jason's family.  More gifts!!  The highlight for Jack was this new baseball tee that automatically puts the ball on the "tee" for you.  Fun times!

Snuggle time with Aunt Cyndi

Jason messing with Mia & Paige, as usual

 After a yummy breakfast of cinnamon rolls and biscuits and gravy, we went back home for nap time.  As soon as Jack got up, we headed over to my Aunt Jean & Uncle Dan's house for a celebration with the Lang side.  Apparently I was getting tired of taking pictures because I have very few from this part of the day and on.  We had a fun time there and I got to visit with some of my cousins that I don't see as often (darn out-of-towners!).

Then we headed to our final stop for the day...Grandma and Grandpa Claytons' house.  We had a gourmet dinner there (think Thanksgiving dinner all over again!) and had a nice time visiting.  Jack and Charlie got (you guessed it!) MORE presents there.  Lucky, lucky guys!!  Jack was excited about the alligator golf game and a fun car carrier truck.

Jack left two of his gifts unopened for most of the night - we finally had to practically beg him to open them.  Little guy was too excited to play with all the new stuff he had already opened!

All in all, we had a great holiday!!