Christmas Day 2009

Santa Made it to our house!!!

The girls were awake at 5:00 am, but were good to keep themselves contained in the room until about 6 o'clock. by 6:30 the girls were going back and forth from the kitchen to their room and just peeking down to the tree. We told them they could go down and LOOK but NO touching anything...

Well, that lasted all of about 2 min. (I'm being generous with the 2 min. time) We heard a couple of the girls saying... oooh! feel this one! it's a ____!!! Unfortunately for them we heard EVERYTHING!!! So, even though we were getting out of bed and on our way to tell them it was ok to get ready, we told them they had to go back to bed for 20 min.

They all made it back to the room, and when all is quiet we could hear Ema pipe up saying... "Thanks a lot Kaleigh, you ruined christmas!!" It was all Mike and I could do to not bust a gut laughing!!! It is quite funny to hear a 3 yr old think that Christmas is ruined! ;)

So 20 min. later we were all up, and eager for the presents...

Santa left a piano full of activity books and stories. He placed all of our stockings around the piano.

We made the traditional call to Grandma and Grandpa Arnold and let them join in on our present opening.

We had left all the presents piled up in little piles... Family, Girls, and Individuals.

We let the girls open the presents they got for each other first...
Each girl had fun and did a great job of buying for each of her sisters. Presents for each other were things like a Rubix Cube, Barbie type dolls, bop it, Magna Doodle, Paperoni, Moon Sand, Jewelry Beads, Princess Soccer ball, Games and so on and so forth... enough to keep them busy for a while :)
Here are a few we captured with the camera...







Then it was time for the stuff from Mommy and Daddy :)
(Santa does our stockings and display stuff)

We had left it in piles... one for each of the girls...

Here is a quick pic of each of the girls with their loot!












Metta made mommy and daddy each an ornament...
an applesauce/cinnamon/gingerbread man, and a cute blue ornament with some very creative Snowmen... :)

Daddy got a gift card to the local Bike shop...
Mommy got some piano music...

Then, Daddy noticed a small present left under the tree... It said it was for Me! I wasn't expecting anything because I got my piano (a huge chunk o' budget) As I read the note that came with it, I turned into the biggest boob... I had a hard time finishing it because I was crying!
Here's what the note said...

Rachel,
I know that you got the baby you have been wanting and that you said you understood and knew that that was your Christmas gift this year, but I felt otherwise, and since I know that you have been an exceptionally good wife, mother, daughter, sister, and friend, I got you another gift that you have been wanting. Only thing is, that I couldn't fit it here under the tree with all the other gifts. So... you need to go to the potting shed where I left it.

We had a great Christmas!
Aunt Debbie sent the girls a gift card for Target, and they got the movie InkHeart and each got a little dollar toy too!

Uncle Matt and Aunt Michele gave us a gift card for a family adventure! The girls decided they wanted to use it on the Chatanooga Aquarium or Science Center (either way it is a small vacation)

Uncle Joel and Aunt Linda gave each of the girls a nice warm fleece blanket

Grandma and Grandpa Reece gave us all pajamas and a little stocking with a gift.

Grandma and Grandpa Arnold gave us all books: Fabelhaven, Mice of Magic, Max Lucado's Your Are Mine, and If I Only Had a Green Nose, I Love You This Much, How High is the Sky?, and Another Witness; a book of religious piano music and LOVELY pictures! And soft pillows and pillowcases so we could have "tweet" dreams!

It was a GREAT Christmas!

2009 has truely been a great year of blessings for our family!