Every morning, Hunter comes into our room and climbs into bed with us. He'll actually lay there with us for a while so we can sleep a little longer...yes, we know how lucky we are;) So on Christmas morning, he did just like he does every other morning until we were awake enough to grab the video camera and lead him into the living room for the surprise of his life.
(James and I spent some time before Christmas discussing whether we were going to teach our children to "believe" in Santa Claus. We eventually decided to do Santa gifts, but not spend a lot of time talking about him. (Please don't feel judged by this. We've received some judgement for choosing to not hype up Santa, so we'd never judge you for choosing to hype him up! We definitely don't think Santa's bad or negative in any way...both of us grew up in homes where Santa was a huge deal, and we love him!) We've just tried to spend a lot of time discussing Jesus' birth this Christmas (not that you're not focusing on Jesus, just because you are doing Santa), but we still join in the excitement with Hunter whenever we see Santa or he mentions him.)
So lots of people had asked me if Hunter was excited for Christmas (before it got here), and the answer is, I don't really think he was, because he didn't know what to expect...he didn't realize there'd be presents waiting for him in the living room...but was he ever excited when he saw them!
My favorite part of the Christmas gift exchange process has always been the stockings. My mom always did an awesome job putting really good things in our stockings (and she still does...thanks mom!), so I tried to do the same for Hunter this year. But all that kid cared about was the candy. Somehow he kept digging around all of the toys and pulling out more and more candy...
(SIDE NOTE: Before you look at the pictures, just know that yes, I know that my toddler's pajamas are entirely too small for him. We waited too long to look for Christmas ones, so he got to wear the mommy-needs-to-do-laundry pair.)
Skittles (notice how he's paying zero attention to the toy on the coffee table and his new DVD on the floor...awesome)...
What's that in your hand Hunter? A totally fun recorder that you can't wait to play?!
Not the excited face y'all were expecting from that special treasure?
Oh wait. There it is. All in the name of the cheapest candy ever...Pez.
Enjoying his Pez...
Finally a toy that makes him happy!
Of course it would be a weapon.
And after his candy fix, he sees the fun that is the recorder...
After Hunter was done with his stocking (and basketball hoop and basketball...somehow I got no pictures of that), we woke Charlotte up. As you can see, she wasn't too happy with us...
And her gumball machine and stocking full of baby shoes, baby bows, and baby legwarmers didn't seem to help matters any...
My family came over later that morning for lunch and our gift exchange. I was a to-tal slacker with the picture taking for this. My "immediate family" consists of 13 people including us, so it was a lot more stressful than the night before when it was just James's parents over. There were presents and wrapping paper all over the place, so I did the best I could.
I'm pretty sure this gift was clothes and got thrown to the side about .4 seconds after I snapped the picture below...
This was one of his two favorite toys for the day...
My dad and I had a great time putting that tool bench together. Hunter loves it...he carries that drill around all day!
Other faves of Hunter's from the day...his very own toddler digital camera (I'll try to post some pictures he's taken with it later) and this vacuum (he screamed, "A vacuum!" in the most excited, shrieky voice as soon as he had torn the wrapping paper enough to see it).
Again, Charlotte was kind of grumpy - partly from the maddening pain of sharpness forcing it's way through her gums and partly from being overstimulated with laughter and shrieking kids and crumpling wrapping paper and toy vacumm and drill noises...
I hope y'all had as great of a day with your families as we did with ours. We feel so blessed to be surrounded by such a loving, giving, supportive family. And above all we are so thankful to be called children of the most high God. A God who would leave his heavenly home to come here and be born in a stable to live the life of a poor man, all so that we could live with him forever...
"For to us a child is born, to us a son is given, and the government will be on his shoulders, and he will be called Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace." Isaiah 9:6
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