Gills-A-GoGo: Big Time on Christmas Day

This is what we woke up to this morning. Atnas stayed away!! Caroline was up around 5 a.m. but was convinced to rest awhile longer. We didn't all get up until this time.

The kids confirmed Santa had been here. Cookies and milk GONE.

Next stop is always the stockings. Caroline was so up and at 'em.

The boys notsomuch. Everyone but Sam was still awake at 11:00-11:30 last night despite having gone to bed at 9-9:30.

But then everyone got into it and had fun finding lots of miscellaneous in their sock.

Grant exclaimed, "It's Shaw-sta!" Imagine Shasta said with an English accent. That cracked us up. Plus, Grant has kept falling down all day due to his way-big sweats. He didn't want to change because, he says, since they are so long, they keep his feet warm. So he's been providing us nonstop crack ups. Except when he fell into the coffee table and banged his knee so hard we were thinking for a minute this might be a Very ER Christmas. But he's ok.

Sam got a shirt and wasn't even angry about it. Probably because it is his favorite color. And because he's looking to branch out from those tired muscle shirts?

The anger came later when he unwrapped pencils and more clothes.

Caroline and the toe socks didn't really work out.

By 6:40, the stockings were done. Time to move to the tree.
Caroline made up little name slips for us to draw names to see what order we would unwrap. Then we decided to just go with youngest to oldest.

This is Caroline giving Grant a big hug. She loved the gift he gave her: a sock monkey.

She said it was her favorite gift. That means it beat out Patches the ZhuZhu pet, her Liv doll, her Lego stable, her new clothes.

Jack got a new garage door opener. SWEET!

Really it was an Airsoft shotgun/pistol combo pack, just like he hoped for.

Grant's always happy when Legos are around. In fact his written wish list was, and I copy:

either a big Lego Star Wars set or 5 small Lego sets, or a few medium ones for at least 20$.

Sam got a jet to wear.
Our friend Danny from Nashville shipped the kids all kinds of silly stuff like he always does.

Sam got a cowboy set from Grant. It was hilarious to watch him use his knife to open packages. Let me restate that:
It was hilarious to watch him use his plastic play knife to open packages.

This is my new big clock. Now, if anyone has any idea just where this is going to work out, let me know. I loved it when I saw it, but really, I am not sure where to put it.

We unwrapped for awhile and then took a break to make some breakfast around 8:20. Hollow biscuits and a sausage egg casserole were delish.

Almost missed getting a shot of any hollow biscuits left in the pan.

And how about this hot oven shot?

Gary humored me by wearing some hip clothes I had for him. Well, hipper than usual, we'll say. Jeans that hit below the waist and had a current look were so rockin' on him! Sadly, he wasn't that comfortable in his new look.

But he still has them on and it's 5:15 in the evening so I know that guy loves me!

He actually bought himself the new (the Goodwill kind of new) Sketchers.

Sam's superexcited about his new headlamp!!!

Later in the morning we resumed unwrapping, and by 1:00 the last present was done.

Lunch: your choice of chili or potato soup.

The rest of the afternoon, we played.

It is really a Lego Land around here.

Everyone got some but me, so just helped myself to Caroline's.

I got a new set of lamps (shopping yourself to help Santa out just really is thoughtful),

and this one was the big shocker. I have wanted a Roomba since they first came out and Gary was never in favor of getting one. He was very skeptical that they really worked and never wanted to shell out the bucks, of course. And this year I got one and, wow, am I gonna be on easy street now?!