silent night.......

Finally. All is calm, all are tired.

It never ceases to amaze me how several months of preparation, shopping, hiding, wrapping, all can come to an end so quickly. Like every other family with small children, ours went through the first wave of Christmas presents in a flash. The first wave being the ones from santa and mommy and daddy. The second and third waves being from nanas and papas and aunts and uncles that came over later in the day. Each pile of gifts were torn open. I told my mom that it doesn't seem right... that the unwrapping should at least take a few more minutes than the time it took you to stand in the checkout when buying said presents.

I hope next year to switch things and everybody take turns opening a present while the others watch for a few minutes. We figured that wouldn't seem like something Matthew would be able to handle quite yet. No matter what, it was still a very nice day. I am amazed at how much my children got, and the neat things that we got too.

The boys both fell asleep pretty easily last night, but Megan wasn't able to. I finally got into her bed to play with her hair and hope to get her to sleep around 11:00. She kept talking, and finally I had to pretend I was asleep so she would stop. Poor thing. I could hear her whispering while she counted down from 100 several times. Finally she nodded off. Then it was go time! Get those presents out, take a bite of the cookies left for santa and go to bed.

5:45 in the freakin' a.m. and Megan comes in to wake me up. Did I even go to bed last night???? The boys were still sleeping so hard that I got up with megan and said that she could open her stocking stuff and play with that for awhile. That kept her busy while she watched the clock. At exactly 7:00 she woke everybody else up. Then the sound of thundering feet running down the stairs.

Matthew had specifically asked for this big Curious George that he saw a few months ago. I thought for sure he would have forgotten about it, but sure enough when he saw santa THAT is what he asked for. It was sitting on top of the tree, and Matthew just laughed so hard when he saw it. Megan and Trevor got what they asked for and then some. Megan wanted a Razor scooter, and Trevor wanted a Pokemon game for his nintendo.

Now hopefully a couple of hours before other people were going to show up. I also had gotten mike a big lego airplane that came with all the fun stuff inside too... like a beverage cart complete with little glasses...and rows of seats. Every boy needs a toy on Christmas morning right? He put that together before even taking a shower. I think he liked it!

Soon Mike's parents showed up with Cheryl, then my mom and sister and her family. My dad unfortunately was sick and couldn't come. It was weird without him here. He ususally loves Christmas. :( - But it was the second and third wave of presents. More stuff. More paper, more sorting and cleaning up. It was awesome.

The adults somewhat got a break because of my nephews. One is 14 and the other almost 16. They had a lot of energy to play with my kids... who also had a lot of energy! I owe those two!

Somehow though, the time went by fast today. Everybody left, and we were exhausted. Trevor wanted to watch his new Pokemon movie, and I fell asleep next to him on the couch. I kind of felt bad because when I woke up it was dark outside. It hit me that Christmas was coming to an end.

So here it is, the end of another Christmas. I hope that my kids are able to remember today and hope that they have good memories from it. I remember how magical Christmas was when I was their age.

Now.........

I am going to crash.