Christmas 2010

On Christmas Eve, the kids had to look in the playroom to hunt for their first Christmas presents...which are always matching Christmas PJs. Our PJ picture came out really well again. This is definitely one of my favorite pictures of the year! The kids were really excited to open their first gifts...especially Eli. After he opened the gift, he smiled and said, "It's ja-jamas!" It was the cutest thing and I wasn't able to capture it right when he said it, so I had to just have him repeat it for me because it was too darn cute.

Christmas Day was so much fun this year. Now that Eli is older, he totally gets it. On Christmas morning, we don't even know what time the kids got up. They were up really early and snuck downstairs to "ooh and ahhh" at all the presents under the tree. Elina went through and read all the gift tags and when she got to one that was for Eli, he yelled out loud, "It's fo' me!" J heard this (since she was sleeping in the playroom downstairs) and she woke up laughing. She heard Elina tell Eli to be quiet so that they wouldn't wake people up. It was so cute. I was sad that I didn't have the energy to wake myself up before the kids. I wanted to see their facial expressions as they came down the stairs...but alas, I am not a morning person so that will probably never happen in this lifetime.

Then Eli went over to where we put Santa's cookies and milk and Eli said, "Santa ate them!" Then I recorded some cute stuff he said about "silly Santa"...


Elina left Santa a cute letter this year. She wrote, "We've been good. Santa surprise me. Eli wants Leo [from Little Einsteins]. We made cookies for you." Elina actually didn't know what to ask Santa for this year. She gave it a lot of thought and she wanted a real pet mouse or pet rat, but I told her that Santa doesn't really like to give pets to little kids. So she couldn't come up with anything else....that's why she told Santa to just surprise her. Good idea!

Since my parents are not early risers, we always have to wait until a "more reasonable" hour to wake them up so that we can all open presents together. The kids have been really good about this. We eat a small breakfast and then the kids can usually get Ah-Gong and Ah-Ma around 9:30am. If we're lucky, we're opening gifts by 10am....if we're lucky. So to pass the time a bit, we had the kids sing one of their favorite Christmas songs this season--"Merry Christmas, Happy Holidays" by N'Sync. That's right, N'Sync. We aren't ashamed to say that it's one of our faves at the house (we know you like it, too!).


The kids got lots of great gifts. Elina's favorite had to be the Chatimal that B and I got for her. She just loves mice, rats, and hamsters. She really has a thing for rodents this year. Anyway, the Chatimal is a hamster that records your voice and then repeats it at 4 random speeds and tones--fast, high-pitched, low-pitched, or slow. We all thought this was the funniest thing ever. Look at the sheer joy in her face after she saw what it was. Priceless! To follow in the rodent theme, Ah-Gong and Ah-Ma got Elina a Calico Critters playhouse complete with a Milky White Mouse Family. Ahhhh, heaven! Elina also really liked the Mindquest (an electronic learning toy) that J got her. Elina loves to learn and memorize new facts, so this was another perfect gift for her.

We got Eli a wooden Melissa and Doug Car Carrier Truck and Thomas' 2 coaches, Annie and Clarabel. Some favorites for Eli were the Little Einsteins' Pat Pat Rocket (from Ah-Gong and Ah-Ma) and the Leapfrog Scribble and Write (from J). Eli also got some awesome light-up triceratops slippers from J and his face was just as priceless as Elina's above, but in all the mayhem none of us were prepared with the video camera or camera. It's a bummer because his jaw just dropped and he was completely speechless. I love Christmas with kids!

We got Evie a nice taggie dog, but she has shows little interest in it so far. She likes her new toys ok, but what she really liked was all the crinkly wrapping paper everywhere. She totally enjoyed herself sitting there!

After gifts we had a new breakfast casserole that I made and then we took our annual wrapping paper pictures...these are always a favorite! I love the picture of Elina and Eli throwing the wrapping paper up in the air...look at those faces!
Then everyone just relaxed and explored their new gifts. Elina and Eli were totally absorbed in the Mindquest and the Scribble and Write. Wow! For Christmas dinner we did an Asian hot pot (huo guo), where there's a pot of simmering stock/soup on a tabletop heating element and lots of raw or frozen food placed around it. Whatever you feel like eating, you toss into the soup, let it cook, and then you take the food out, dip it in some sauce and eat it. It's delicious and fun! This year the heating element my parents brought from home was having technical difficulties. We almost weren't able to do the hot pot, but then B busted out our camping propane stove and saved the day! It looked strange with the wind guards, but you gotta do what you gotta do to have hot pot on Christmas Day!
The next day the kids and the grandparents made a huge batch of homemade dumplings--delicious! (I love that Eli and Ah-Gong are matching in their undershirts!)And the kids and I finally got around to decorating our cake trains.
What a yummy and fun holiday! We hope everyone had very Merry Christmas, like we did!