merry christmas!

merry christmas! i hope that everyone had a wonderful day with their families and loved ones! we had a quietly, wonderful day at home with our little family.

madelyn was so excited about each and every gift that it literally took the whole day to get her to open all of her presents. she wanted to play with each toy and read each book before we could tear her away from it to open another wrapped gift. while it took a long time, i was glad that she is always content with what she has and i hope that she has many more christmases like this one.

i have put together a little highlight video of our morning. madelyn was so neat about unwrapping her gifts. she would make piles with the torn paper and would usually have to get all the paper off before having a reaction to the gift. of course her first comment was usually "open". (we are all wearing reindeer pajamas. my family always unwrapped pjs on christmas eve and we have continued that tradition - this year's theme was reindeer.)

madelyn also got a junior doctor's kit. she has spent a lot of time playing with it. i think that it helped that she had her checkup this week and the doctor let her play with the otoscope the whole visit. she knew to put that in her ear (and ours) right away. another instrument that she knew immediately how to use was the stethoscope. she would quietly 'listen' to her heart and chest, my knees, jesus in the nativity, you get the idea. and daddy taught her how to make a heart beat noise so now she give a "thump, thump" sound when 'listening' to a heart.

she has really enjoyed a little play house set (seen in the picture). everything from her "henry" train to her stacking cups has made a trip through the front door. she is just having fun seeing what will fit in it. we didn't know that it took batteries until after we realized that we didn't have any more (the kitchen took a lot), so she hasn't even gotten to hear all the noises it makes too. that is just going to refresh her love all over again when we get some more batteries.

i thought for sure that all the excitement would make her get a long nap, no. i was very much mistaken. madelyn did not take a long nap, she didn't even take a short nap, she took no nap! we tried twice and she would lay down in bed like normal but then 15 minutes later we would hear her playing and her door opening and closing. at least she knew enough to stay in her room until we came to get her. surprisingly she was perfectly happy and cooperative all day. she didn't act like someone who had been taking 3 hour naps all week and needed to sleep.

since she was some how still awake and happy we went to a neighborhood in the area that has been doing a charity light display for the past 21 years. madelyn really enjoyed the lights (that she could see - street parking and snow piles made some of the viewing difficult) and really liked seeing "jesus" in the nativity displays. madelyn's love of jesus has been a wonderful reminder this season. he is the first thing on her mind in the morning and the last thing on her mind at night (she has taken the figure to bed with her more than once). and at dinner she asks to pray and then sing "jesus loves me" at least once before she will let go of our hands and let us eat dinner. she has been such a blessing to us and christmas has been such a wonderful time to reflect on just how blessed we are. merry christmas! love.