Christmas Eve Morning (a.k.a. Our Christmas Morning)

I wanted to finish posting about Christmas before I forget!

We had our Christmas morning with the boys here on the morning of Christmas Eve. Remember with me back to the cute matching PJs, which are partially intended for adorable Christmas morning pictures. Well, both boys had to be changed in the morning - Caleb had soaked through his, and due to their tight-fitting (albeit adorable) nature, Gabe had a little trouble going potty in the morning and peed all over his, too. Thus the unmatching PJs in the pics below. But they're still cute. :-)

We decided to start with stockings!



I found some fun stocking stuffers this year (if I do say so myself), including these crazy straw glasses from the Paper Source. They were fun, for a minute. And now I don't even know where they are. And Caleb's are still in the package. So maybe "fun" was an overstatement.



Then it was time for presents:



Lots of presents:



I was totally on board and excited for the Want, Need, Wear, Read approach and got COMPLETELY overruled by my significant other. I will just leave it at that. :-)



We even had a present under the tree from Gabie that he made at school - homemade ornaments. He was so proud and so were we:



It was a big Star Wars year for Gabe. Before Christmas, he told me the "the one thing he wanted and would definitely not say no to" was "a Darth Vader costume." And then later added that he also wanted a Star Wars ship (like Grandma Sandi's). So, Star Wars it was. Dan ordered the costume from Amazon and it came just in the nick of time - our Christmas Eve Eve. Dan had it shipped to his office, so he brought it home and when we went to wrap it at 11 p.m. that night we realized a crucial piece was missint - the MASK. Sort of an essential piece of the Darth Vader costume. So, Dan did what any parent wanting to grant their child's only Christmas wish would do - went to Toy's 'R Us to find a replacement. Thankfully they were open until 1 a.m. and THANKFULLY they had 2 Darth Vader costumes left. And then on the way out, Dan saw a whole cart of them waiting to be restocked. It was our little Christmas miracle and it was worth it to see the look on Gabe's...I mean Darth's.... face Christmas morning.



Caleb got his faves - things with buttons that make noise and things that move:



And after all was said and done, the house looked like this:




But it was a wonderful morning. I was thinking how there really are only a few years where Christmas is so exciting and magical for them and I'm cherishing each one.