Christmas at Pawpaw and Bam Bam’s

After Christmas morning at home, we headed out to my mom and dad's house. One of Jackson's favorite things to do this Christmas, was to find his name on the gifts. As soon as we walked in the door and he saw so many gifts with his name on the tag, he couldn't wait to start opening gifts.

"HEY EVERYBODY! IT'S TIME TO OPEN PRESENTS! COME ON! TIME FOR PRESENTS!" (He likes to think that he is in charge....)

We kept the boys in the kitchen for a few minutes while my parents put their new bikes under the tree to surprise them with....

These are called Skuut bikes and are supposed to teach kids balance, steering and coordination before they learn how to ride a real bike.

I don't know what Mom and Garrett were talking about, but it looks fun!

Oh.....help me! Aaron is going to learn Spanish. You should hear him speak it now. He thinks he has a natural talent at speaking Spanish already. Going to a Mexican restaurant with Aaron is always an experience - "Excuse me Senorita. Can we get more el-chip-os?" The best part is that he isn't trying to be funny, he really thinks they understand el-chip-os better than the word chip. And trust me, this is only an EXAMPLE of his spanish vocabulary. Again, he believes he is a natural! :)

Jackson and Garrett's FAVORITE Christmas present. I highly recommend this toy! Zoom Around Garage

Every Christmas Aaron puts on all of his shirts he gets. He is not like most of us that just fold it and put it back in the box...he has to put it on. If he gets another shirt, he will put it on over the first one. He wears many layers of shirts during present time.

"Agggggg! I gotta try this one on!" is said after he opens every shirt.

I had to laugh at my sister and Ricky this year. Next year will be completely different for them with Savannah crawling around, but this year they got to open their presents so peacefully.....

But for me, it wasn't too peaceful.....

With the boys opening presents one after another and toy makers putting those darn twisty ties on every toy, I got behind on everyones trash.....

And then our oldest child was coming out of the bathroom still pulling up his pants because he didn't want to miss anything....

We had to deal with many battles over new toys - BIG battle over this airplane!

And if the boys actually have a calm moment, chances are my husband is doing something crazy......

Sis, get ready!.....your time is coming!

I love this little shirt for Garrett!

Playing Wii -

Garrett couldn't make it any longer....

Jackson playing cars with Pawpaw.....

Christmas!

Starting with the day before Christmas Eve....

While Garrett was napping, I let Jackson make gingerbread cookies to leave out for Santa. Garrett probably would have enjoyed using the cookie cutter as well, but sometimes Jackson needs that one on one time with me and the thought of Garrett with flour and a rolling pin scares me a little.....

Jackson and I baked them and later that evening, the 4 of us decorated them.

After his attention span with making cookies came to an end, he decided he would pretend to be Santa and ride on his sleigh (the bar stool) while calling out the names of the reindeer. I had no idea he knew all their names until this moment. I don't think I even know all their names....

We spent the morning of Christmas Eve at home. We went to the 2:00 church service with Randy, Dianne, and Blair and then spent the rest of the evening at their house. Both Shelly and Carissa's in-laws live out of town, so this year they were not home for Christmas. We will have Christmas with the whole family next week.

Christmas morning....

The letter from Santa and the plate of cookies after Santa got a hold of them.

{Did you know that the Santa that visited our house didn't get the "memo" that you are supposed to leave a letter for the children after you eat their cookies? Mrs. Claus had to tell him about the letter! Santa also got in trouble for the cookies. He thought he needed to eat every cookie on the plate and make the plate look clean and crumb free. After Mrs. Claus refilled his plate with cookies, he finally got it right. Mrs. Claus was a little bossy this year since a certain 3 year old asks a lot of questions.....}

Presents left by Santa....notice a gingerbread man must have fallen out of his pocket while he was going back up the chimney.

For the whole month of December I have been trying to figure out how to handle Christmas morning. Last year Jackson and Garrett were BOTH in cribs and couldn't roam the house in the middle of the night, this year however....they BOTH have freedom.

We decided that we would let them sleep with us so that they would wake us before roaming the house.

And this is why we are not fans of "co-sleeping" -

We have a king size bed, but wow - they could care less if they knock Mommy off the bed. For some reason, Aaron sleeps just as comfortably as they do, but I am balancing on the edge of the bed to keep from falling off.

Seeing what Santa left.....

At this point of the morning, Garrett thought that the whole Christmas morning thing was over rated. He wanted to go back to bed.

Shaking the presents...

Jackson finally getting his "toy wee-weeder (weed eater), toy blow, and toy chainsaw." He also had a "toy bike" on his list, however Santa must have known that Jackson's BamBam and PawPaw were getting him a bike, so Santa didn't bring him one. After presents were opened and things had settled down, I asked Jackson "What was your favorite gift from Santa?" He said "My toy wee-weeder, my toy blower, my toy chain saw,................does Santa not know how to make a bike?" :)

The rest of Christmas Day coming up next. I thought that was enough for you all to handle for one post. :)