Christmas Vacation

Christmas morning came and, although Santa did not come for my kids (he delivered our presents in Baltimore), he did leave some fun gifts for the cousins. Every year the kids gather at the top of the stairs before heading down to the family room!

McKenna got Monster High dolls which is what Savannah has been longing for since the summer. McKenna was so sweet to let Savannah pretty much monopolize her new dolls.

The kids did get to open some gifts from family...Savannah received a new outfit for her Felicity doll;

Xander, of course, got a new Star Wars guy;

and the most excited person of the morning was Noah - he received a Skeletor and Panthor from Grandma and Grandpa! As you can see, he was in heaven with his new gift.

We always have such a wonderful time staying with my parents and this visit we got to stay for nine days. They spoiled us, as usual, taking us to the Children's Museum, to lunch at Red Robin and then to the movie "Tangled", and babysat the kids one night so David and I could go out. We also hit the local Chuck E. Cheese for a few hours (my least favorite place in the whole world)



and then to the mall where they have this trampoline thing that the kids love to do.



New Year's Eve was a pretty low-key affair with most everyone in the house asleep by 11:00. Dad did get us Montgomery Inn for dinner which was YUMMY!!! The week flew by and now we just have to look forward to our next visit.
One final shot of all the cousins.

Although we hated to leave Cincinnati, there was a bright spot: the kids had presents waiting for them at home.
Initially the excitement was low because Santa did not deliver the gifts that they had been hoping for. But they got plenty of other wonderful things and I loved that they had bought gifts for each other.

When I handed Noah his gift from Xander, Noah exclaimed: "Xander, you got me a present? Thank you!" and ran over to Xander to give him a big hug, without even opening his gift.

Noah was excited about every gift he got and would say, "I've been dying for this" after he opened each one.

And then came the finale...the BIG gifts from Mom and Dad. We explained to the kids that we had contacted Santa and told him that this year we wanted to get them the big ticket items. The kids were thrilled! Noah got his Joker car, Xander got his remote control Star Wars tank,

and Savannah got her Monster High dolls.


Another wonderful Christmas!