Merry Christmas!

We woke up before the kids!  In fact... I sort of woke them up!  Ha! Ha!  Lennard had gone out to the living room, turned on the Christmas lights and was patiently waiting.  I went and told my parents that we could start any time... and then I went upstairs and started playing Christmas songs/sounds in the hallway.  Ben was up immediately and jumping up and down.  Emma took a few minutes more, but they were pretty excited to get out to the living room.  The best part was when they headed down the hallway, the first thing they did was run to give grandma and grandpa a hug before they even looked at the gifts under the tree or their stockings.  (Melted my heart)

One of the first things they noticed after that was that Santa had eaten the cookies and milk!  There was part of a cookie left on the plate and Ben asked, "Does Santa have germs?"  When we said 'no', he quickly asked, "Can I eat the rest of his cookie?"  We all got a good laugh out of that!

 They got to open their stockings and then we had family prayers together.  Then we got down to business of opening gifts!

We had so much fun taking turns opening gifts.  We all got spoiled and it was so fun having my parents there with us.  One of the very last gifts that got opened was a Simon Dewey painting of the woman at the well.  Lennard had written on the tag - "To my wife.  From your hubby"  Emma picked it up and said, "To my wiffy?  Who's wiffy?"  It took us a minute to figure out that she was pronouncing the 'e' at the end of wife.  We definitely laughed!  What a fun time when kids are learning to read.

After opening gifts and playing with some of them, we had to get ready and head to church!  It was a beautiful Sacrament meeting.  The kids got to sing with the Primary in church.  It was the perfect way to spend Christmas morning.

When Lennard finished up at church, we headed out to my parents house for Christmas dinner. Since we leave tomorrow and we're going to miss our annual Fish Pond, mom let the kids 'fish' for their presents today.

 Ben was thrilled to get a Star Wars blanket!  His whole room is Star Wars now!

 Emma fished for her present and Grandpa tricked her with a phone book first!  ha! ha!  Then she got to fish again and got her real present.

 Getting all kinds of nail polish was a great gift!

 Ben had fun getting rolled up in his blanket afterwards!

It was a great way to spend the afternoon together.  We had to head home in the early evening so that we could get packed up, but I loved getting to spend some time with my parents.