Christmas

We bought a real Christmas tree about 4 weeks ago and have definitely enjoyed the fresh smell... although it still is sometimes tempting to buy a pre-lit, perfectly shaped tree and just leave the ornaments on and store it ready-to-go in the garage! I gave the kids dinosaur pajamas on Christmas Eve. We have never done this on Christmas before, but the kids LOVE to match and they did need new pajamas.
Caeden looks old in a weird way in this picture but it's cute that they're hugging and they're so happy.
Beckham with his chipmunk smile:
I love staying home for Christmas. I feel badly that we can't be with both sets of grandparents at the same time, but it's SO much easier to just have Christmas morning at our house, with no traveling, no coordination, last-minute wrapping and our own beds to sleep in. Here are the kids waiting to go into the family room (please excuse the huge pregnant woman with the video camera):
The kids were so excited they were running and jumping everywhere... I feel like the word "active" only begins to describe my boys.
I love how Trey looks perfectly happy and you can see the day beginning to dawn in the background:
Becks in mid-air
Caeden holding up his pajama pants as he runs to show me his monkey book, another Goodwill stocking stuffer:
Someone from Carson's work got the kids these M&M candy canes and they all pretended to use them as real canes saying "I'm an old man! I'm an old man!"
The nerf gun tag set was a big hit:
Here's Christmas morning from the parents' point of view:
In the afternoon we went up to my parents' house for dinner.
I was worried that the kids would be disappointed with Christmas this year since we didn't have a lot of money to spend on it, but they were just as happy as ever, and with the presents from the extended family I think they got everything they truly wanted. We had a lot of fun and were able to do all the activities we wanted to as a family, despite my pregnancy-induced tiredness and Carson's busiest month at work. It's awesome to have kids. They make Christmas special and they have such an endless supply of energy and hope.