Christmas morning

I know that weeks have passed since Christmas, but I don't want to forget how these sleepy heads looked on Christmas morning.  We were truly blessed on Christmas morning, and the kids got quite a load this year.  Some things I loved about Christmas 2011 were:  going to church before we opened all the presents (except stockings), just our family opening presents together (we did family gatherings on Christmas eve), and all the fun toys that we got to play with for several days afterwards (they got some neat toys this year).

Here are the kids right after they woke up Christmas morning.  We put the gate up so nobody would forget and go out to the living room and see everything first.  They are pretty excited to go see what they have in their stockings.



Here's Aaron's pile. 

April and her pile...

Aric digging in...

Aaron and April got these music things, can't remember what they are called at the moment, but they are like the spinning things that make music in little music boxes.  They wanted these when we went camping at Fort Stevens last summer.  Aaron's plays The Battle Hymn of the Republic, and April's plays Silent Night.


Alexander had a little pile too, he is holding a ball that was in his pile.



Then we hurried off to Church for Sacrament services, and came home to wait until Daddy was done finishing his church duties.  We watched the Polar Express to pass the time until Daddy came home, the kids could hardly stand it.  Finally about halfway through Daddy came home!  No pajamas in these Christmas pictures.

We got a lot of Lego sets...

Aric got a special first year baby book.  He thought at first he was getting a book with Alexander's pictures in it.  Too funny.

Aaron's Oregon State Beaver pillow pet from Aric (of course he helped Aric pick it out :-)  He loves that thing, sleeps with it every night.

All he wanted for Christmas was a remote controlled car, that is one happy boy!

April got new boots from Daddy (she helped him pick them out too!)

This is Aric's "big" gift from mom and dad this year, geotrax!...

April's "big" gift from Mom and Dad this year, a nook color!...

What a mess!  But, a fun mess.  These are pictures of later Christmas day when they were getting all their new toys out.  Here is Daddy and Aaron trying out his new snap circuits (thanks to our new homeschool friends for showing us those!).

April is playing with her new nook, holding her new horse, wearing her new horse pajamas.  So cute!

Alexander loved all the new things to explore.  He even loved opening all the presents, and totally got into it.  Here he is playing with his new Little People Noah's ark. 

I think our house cannot take any more toys!  I am still having a hard time finding places for everything.  It was a good Christmas though, and I love all the things we got for them.