A few of our favourite things

We opened our gifts days ago and I'm...still talking about it...

We had quite a stormy night last night—on a tornado watch all night long, but no tornadoes for us (thank goodness)—and the morning was absolutely dreary when we woke up. Things were still drizzling when we went to church, but when we came outside after church the sky was a brilliant blue and you'd hardly know it was the end of December!

Zoë was excited to wear her new (with a heel!) shoes to church. She chose to stand with this holly bush behind her (because it's so Christmassy).

Here's Phoebe also looking cute at church:

We had our last Linger Longer of the year (our meeting schedule changes at the start of the year so we'll no longer have the last block of the day, and thus can't linger longer without disturbing other units).

*****

Candy canes are a new love of Phoebe's. Listening is not a love of hers. She unwrapped this entire candy cane even though we told her not to and...she soon found out why that was a bad idea (it's all tangled up and stuck in her hair).

But a bath can remedy that sticky problem, and Phoebe loves baths!

*****

Now on to Christmas morning!

Here's Phoebe unwrapping presents...

She hardly cared what was inside because the unwrapping part was so much fun!

Phoebe's favourite gift was probably her other Titus (which somewhat matches the one she got for her birthday from Grandpa and Darla). She's been calling them "Sitting Up Puppy" (the one she got on Christmas morning from Auntie Josie) and "Laying Down Puppy" (the one from her birthday).

Here's Alexander being extra cute:

His favourite gift may have been this scripture case (he'd been asking for one for months):

But he loved everything he unwrapped!

Around this time, Phoebe zoned out from "too much Christmas":

Zoë was unimpressed with the amount of tape I used on this present:

But you can see that she was super excited about the set of nail clippers she got in her stocking (she has them looped around her fingers as she's working on unwrapping gifts). This is her face as she's unwrapping some School for Good and Evil book:

And here she is thinking the way I addressed this present from Auntie Josie was just so funny:

Her favourite present (besides her shiny new church shoes) was probably the 25 lbs. of air-dry modeling clay we got for her. She's been begging for clay for quite some time now. This particular quantity of clay was priced at a bargain (we figure this way she also has plenty to share with others who might want to join in on her fun), but it felt like we were gifting her a neutron star or something! It was such a heavy present!

Around this time, Phoebe discovered that the little pool she got with her Bluey toys would turn all the world blue:

Here's Benjamin ready to dive into his stack of gifts (many of which ended up being new pairs of pants to take over the hard job of clothing this kid—he is so rough on his clothes):

He was probably most excited about this Dungeons and Dragons handbook that Auntie Josie sent:

He also got a number of Star Wars LEGO sets, which he loved (though I had to cut him off from announcing the price of every set he opened—that's tacky, man...don't do that).

When Benjamin opened this gift he stopped halfway, completely confused. "Oooh!" he said as he began unwrapping it. "Mom got me...a bunch of dowels?"

He discovered that they were new arrows for the bow and arrow set he got for his birthday a while back:

Around this time Alexander discovered the light refracting glasses that came with a pack of stickers Auntie K sent:

Here's Miriam opening her pile of presents, which she may have initially felt was small compared to anyone else's pile. Zoë designed a LEGO organ for Miriam and hand drew step-by-step instructions for her to do (because her design involved some "illegal builds," like putting a fence piece lying down (as the keyboard) so she couldn't use a computer program to do it):

Here's Miriam opening her iPad:

She went through a range of emotions over this gift. She was shocked. She was incredulous. She was giddy. She was overcome. She was...

"It's real!" she informed everyone, after opening the box. "I thought it would be something else inside the box! But it's real!"

The iPad was Grandpa's idea. He'd grown tired of watching her lug all of her organ music around, I guess, and suggested that we go into together on an extra special Christmas present for her. She has enjoyed loading her music onto the iPad and playing around with various page turning apps—there are apps these days that will turn your pages for you with a blink of an eye or a twitch of your lips!

She's also been sketching quite a lot and has done some beautiful drawings. 

Around this time Phoebe remembered that she had two Tituses:

We already went through a lot of Rachel's gifts, but here are Rachel and Miriam trying to decide how to open this present from Auntie K together (it's a pack of water bottle stickers, which are quite the commodity among the youths these days):

And here's Rachel admiring the gift Zoë gave to her:

It's a little model of a cake with 17 candles and some black crows and Little Women:

I wondered at first whether it might be a hat and Rachel conceded that it might be but that she was fairly certain it was a cake.

Here are my lovely boys:

I don't have any pictures of me opening gifts, but I do have this picture of Phoebe standing beside one of the gifts Andrew got me (she was hoping I would open it soon so she could use it as a boat):

He got me an office chair that was suggested for people who...uh...can't seem to sit...like normal people do. It has a wide seat cushion so you can comfortably sit criss-cross applesauce and no arms so you can comfortably squat with your knees pulled up in front of you, with your arms chickening out on either side to reach your keyboard. Apparently he was tired of me getting my ankles trapped in the back of my chair (I'm coming, I'm coming...just let me untangle myself from my chair), so we're trying this out.

Phoebe had a lot of fun spinning in it with her Titus puppies once we got it assembled:

We already discussed some of Andrew's presents as well, but I also got him a chopping device for the kitchen, which will hopefully speed up food prep (we go through a lot of vegetables over here), as well as this retractable ping-pong net that can turn any table into a ping-pong table. I don't know if he really loves this gift all that much, but I do know that I grew up playing ping-pong (my Grandma had a ping-pong table in her basement, and the Torries had one on the farm, and we had one in our basement in High River for a while...did it come to Utah with us?? I don't think it did) and I know that Andrew had a ping-pong table in his basement in Orem (in the storage room...or am I making this up?) so I thought it might be fun. We don't really have room for a ping-pong table right now...but this makes it possible to play on the tables already in our house.

When Andrew first opened it he thought it might be binoculars:

And, finally, here is Phoebe opening the last present of the day:

It's a set of books from Naanii about little-known heroes. Phoebe was excited to open the books because I'd forgotten to wrap any for her...even though I had a few to give to her. "Books!" she squealed happily when she had the paper off:

After presents and clean up and some Christmas brunch, we headed over to Grandpa and Darla's for the afternoon and evening:

We had dinner with three of Darla's daughters (as well as two of her sons-in-law and three grandkids) and GG (Great-Grandma Marion) as well, so it was a pretty crowded table, but it was good to have so many people to get together with. Darla made a toast to new beginnings (the little kids were all just excited about getting sparkling cider):

Here's Phoebe saying goodnight to Titus and looking every bit like a Christmas princess:

When we got home, Alexander and Phoebe obligingly put on matching pyjamas so I could take their picture in front of the tree. Alexander wasn't the problem here. Phoebe was. 

Alexander was quite eager to wear these elf pyjamas (that I scored on the Buy Nothing Group two years ago for Zoë and Alexander to wear) because he had fond memories of dressing up in them with Zoë. But Phoebe just didn't feel that same excitement. She liked her red and white polka dot jammies better (they have little Santa faces/hats on the feet and she thinks those are the perfect touch, so she didn't want to wear her elf pyjamas. 

But she agreed to put them on, then marched herself over to the tree, and knelt down with an oppressive sigh. "Tum on, Aleksei," she said, patting the ground beside her.

Top points for understanding the vision (cute kids! perched under the tree!)...but a low score for enthusiasm (we want pizzaz, Phoebe, not apathy). Here she is muttering "Stop touching me!" to Alexander:

You win some...you lose some, I guess. 

Look how cheerful these elves were to have matching pyjamas!!

And I think that just about sums up Christmas!