Merry Christmas!!!

On Christmas Eve we got together with my side of the family for a little pre-Christmas celebrating. (We won't do our regular gift exchange until my sis Emily comes home on Jan 11.) We got some "little somethings" for the kids, including these balls that the boys are attacking Damon with. They are soft balls on elastic strings that you attach to your wrist so that they bounce back to you.

My mom and Don received a present from his son and his wife of this bear that tells the "Night Before Christmas" story. They brought it along because they knew that the littler kids would be intrigued by it. They were right: Sam and Lily were especially captivated!

On Christmas Day, we spent the first part of the day watching the kids with their new toys. Later on in the day we had Damon's parents over for dinner and presents. I expected this year to be quieter than normal - no Cole family to visit with, and no Emily making her usual ruckus - but what noise and excitement they all usually make, we seemed to make up for with the plethera of electronic toys the kids received! It now appears that we subconsciously centered our gifts for the boys around the theme, "Things with Triggers." Maybe next year's theme should be, "Things That Don't Take Batteries." Here's a video from first thing Christmas morning:

At the time we couldn't figure out why the gun was going off by itself, but later realized that Will's remote control was interfering! (This also happens when the new laser guns come out! See what I mean about 'things with triggers?!' We also got them a game where you shoot marbles at each others targets in an arena, and Sam got a Planet Heroes spaceship that also has a trigger! Lots of shoot ups going on around here.) Sam's favorite gift seemed to be the Western gun that shoots the cans off the log - he even blows on the end of the gun when he's finished! Will likes the remote control helicopter and the "I Can Play Guitar" game he got.

Another serious favorite of the boys are their new robes, courtesy of the Cole Family: Thanks, Coles - it was a great idea! They had to go put them on immediately, and wanted to sleep in them, but I was afraid they'd get too hot, so they hung them on the end of their beds and put them back on first thing this morning. It is now 3:30 pm, and since we're not going anywhere today they are still wearing them!!

Max missed out on all the initial present-opening, but when he woke up he got to enjoy some of his new presents too: