Christmas Overload

I tried to whittle it down some, but not too hard. I went a little overboard with Christmas, both in terms of photos and in terms of presents.

Since they were up late for Christmas Eve, the kids all slept in for Christmas morning - they were up around 7:30 (their bus usually comes at 7:05). Here they are right before we let them have at it.

Reading the instructions. 

Amelie asked for a nesting doll after someone from Russia came to her school to talk about Russian culture. 

Cutting open an LOL pet ball. This seems slightly dangerous.

Leah got an Elmo, which was actually a toy that we already had that I just wrapped up for her since I don't think she knew about it. "Elmo" is one of the (many!) words she knows - from a Sesame Street book that we have. 

She also kept redistributing the gifts - deciding at random that "This Leah's" or "This Dada's" and passing presents and packages out again. 

Look at James's face when he opened the boomerang he asked for. 

Mayhem!

 

 

Sam made Leah a collage of family photos. She enjoys it a great deal - she kept going back to look at it all day long. She'd point to each person and name them.

Then we lost them to electronics the rest of the day (almost). James went out to play with his boomerang a few times and then Sam took the big kids to the park twice to hunt for Pokemon. 

Video footage:

Here's the link to last year for comparison.