happy birthday to Jesus!

i wasn't expecting the kids to get up all that early.  ever since we have gotten settled into our house, the kids have been sleeping to 7, 8 or even later!  it has always been a struggle to get madelyn to stay in her room until 7am and mason and maddux have been pre-7 risers too.  anyway, i woke up Christmas morning to the sound of quiet playing - i knew that it was mason (madelyn would have come to get us and maddux is still in a crib).

last shot of the tree Christmas eve (most of the presents are not from matt and me).

we got the boys a firehouse/police station playset and that is where mason was when i came out into the living room.  he was so excited!

mason and maddux were so cute playing with their firehouse/police station all day. (notice that they are still in their church clothes - mason was even still wearing his name tag on his back!)  at one point they were playing peek-a-boo through the windows (maddux was on the outside and mason was inside) just laughing hysterically; i just couldn't get the camera fast enough.

it was really nice to have mason to help open presents this year - things went a lot faster.  maddux has been open presents for weeks (and i have been re-wrapping) but today - nothing.  we could not get him to open a single present.  once they were open though he was excited.  he would even cry when we would try to take the box to open it; he didn't want to give it up for even a moment.

madelyn was going to get a doll house, but ultimately, she likes little things and loved her castle.

madelyn asked "santa" for a pink train with pink tracks; she got a pink conductors hat and two pink trains.  mason asked for a green truck book so he got a green dump truck and several truck books (some with green trucks).  maddux got a blue step stool for the bathroom from "santa".

because daddy was getting cabin fever because i wouldn't let him do any 'work' around the house, he took mason out to use the newest baseball tee.  as you can see, it was fun for all!  madelyn and i were bummed not to have a white Christmas, but i think it worked out for the best.

we hope that you had a wonderful day celebrating Christ's birth!  i know we did (even though we never got around to making his birthday cake - oops - it's the first year we didn't make one).  my favorite thing about Christmas this year is that the kids said "baby jesus" about a hundred more times than "santa"!  we are really working on keeping the focus in the right place.  love.