Christmas 2007

Merry day after Christmas everyone! My house is an absolute disaster. Presents and paper everywhere in the living room, and a stage full of instruments in the family room.
Christmas Eve i was up until 2am wrapping gifts, filling stockings, etc. The baby woke up at 6am and Shane brought him to our bed for me to feed. At 6:30 we see a light in the hall bathroom and hear the boys giggling and whispering excitedly. Shane and I quickly lay down and close our eyes to wait for the boys to wake us up. Shane says quietly to me "Here we go!" and I giggle back "I'm so excited!" I soon feel little eyes staring at me and find Tyler standing at my side of the bed. When i looked at him he calmly said "He came." and Riley says "And he left sock monkeys in our stockings!" Up out of bed and Shane started coffee while I went with the boys to investigate. Sure enough, Santa had eaten the cookies, leaving a bit of one with a big Santa bite missing. The Pepsi was all gone and the reindeer food we'd set out (a little bag of hay) was open and mostly empty, with bits of it all over the hearth and inside of the fireplace.
Off to the tree next to see what presents were for whom, and shake them, and compare the sizes of them while we waited for daddy to come pass them all out. After everything had been opened, they found a large present from Santa behind the tree. With excitement and glee they tore it open to find "Rockband" beneath the paper. Excitement soon dissipated when they saw that it was to be used with an XBox 360. They announced that Santa messed up and Shane and I told them we'd have to start saving towards the XBox so we could eventually play with the game. Then to our utter disbelief, there was yet another gift from Santa nestled way in the back behind the tree. The boys dragged it over, lamenting that it was so very heavy. We could bear the anticipation no longer and said "open it! open it!" Again bits of paper and tape went flying as they unwrapped and Tyler stared at it blankly for a few seconds. Finally Riley tells Tyler in a "duh" sort of voice "It's an XBox 360 like we wanted!" Tyler still stares quietly. Is he in shock? Is he crying tears of joy? Finally his eyes went wide as saucers and he exclaims "IT'S A REAL XBOX 360!!!!" I thought he might faint from the excitement. It was so adorable. So fun to make their little wishes come true. It's getting more and more expensive to do so but as long as we can we'll keep doing it because it absolutely makes our Christmas.
Caleb was a doll and was doing pretty good at tearing the paper off of his presents. He LOVE LOVES his little FP Star Stacker thing that lights up/plays music. Adorable. After all the running around we did for the rest of the day, and him not really napping at all, it took over an hour to get him down to bed last night. I suppose, a first Christmas is quite exciting and exhausting all at once and so, it was to be expected that it was hard for him to go to sleep and have his very first Christmas really be all over.

I am feeling that "let down" of all the hype leading up to the holiday, and now the exhaustion sets in. Just think, only 364 more days until we do it again. woot.