christmas bells are ringing

Kevin and I set alarms to wake up before the kids, and Brooke woke up shortly after that.  She remembered not to come out of her room, but instead called for us on her monitor.  Kevin and I went to get her, then all went in to wake Colby.  These two were so excited to see if Santa came to our house...

Colby's big present was this Furreal Tiger that moves and growls. As you can see, he loved it!  Brooke also really loved it, and made sure that Colby shared with her all morning.  Brooke's big gift was a Leap Pad with some learning games. She was super excited as well, but I really should have unboxed it and charged it before Christmas morning because she couldn't actually play with it for a while. 

I really tried to scale back this year because we already have so many toys at our house, and I don't want my kids being overly spoiled.  I bought them each two things, Santa brought them that Vet Kit, and the rest of the gifts were from family.  They still had tons of new stuff, so I'm not sure if my plan worked, haha.  They did show gratitude for each new thing, and were really sweet when they opened the gifts to each other, so that's good :) (Colby gave Brooke a Jasmine Barbie, and Brooke picked out walkie talkies for Colby, which he called "hockey talkies".)

After we opened all our gifts, we ate waffles for breakfast, then reminded the kids that we hadn't looked for our elf, Claudia.  Claudia was hiding in the oven, and was holding a note that told the kids that Santa had something really big for our family that wouldn't even fit in the house.  Brooke guessed right away that it must be in the backyard, and her reaction is priceless.  Like, jumping up and down excited :)  Colby was also excited, but it took longer for him to get used to being on there when someone else was jumping.

Around three, our dinner guests arrived (Grandma, Papa, Tom, and Robbie), and spent the rest of the day with us.  We cooked a beef tenderloin with bernaise sauce, mashed potatoes, an apple/bacon salad, honey-glazed carrots, garlic bread, and Martinelli sparking cider (our kids' new favorite drink). 

Random story of the day:  I was preheating the oven for the tenderloin, then went outside to check on the kids.  When I came back inside, the house smelled super weird. Kevin was at the stove searing the meat, and I asked what the smell was.  He had no idea what I was talking about, and then it dawned on me!  We never took Claudia out of the oven!!! I immediately opened the oven to see her head as black as coal and about three sizes bigger than normal.  Thankfully the kids were outside, so I quickly grabbed sone tongs and removed her from the oven.  When the kids later asked where she was, I told them that she went back to the North Pole since Christmas was over.  

We enjoyed the company, and had fun playing with new toys together.  Before they left, we had a crock pot apple crisp, a la mode.

And that was our Christmas Day in a nutshell :)  Kevin and I both felt like the day went really well, and we enjoyed just being in our home with family.