The fat man has come and gone, the trees and lights are back in the attic, and the house is overflowing with toys. Christmas, it would seem, has officially come and gone. All that's left is to give you a slice of the nearly 200 photos we posted and show off a slew of videos from our three-Christmas extravaganza.
It all started with the annual class Christmas parties at school.
After we were finished with Owen's holiday snacktime, we moved on to Max's room.
We gathered up all of our things and decided to take the boys over to the mall for some last-minute shopping. The last time we were there, I was getting something looked at in the Apple Store, but the kid computers weren't working. We promised them a return visit and this seemed like a good opportunity to make good on that.
After we pried them away from the computer, we headed upstairs to give them a spin on the carousel.
A few days later, Christmas Eve was upon us. We headed up north for First Christmas in Sherman.
We all scarfed down our lunch and decided it was high time to let the kids go to town on all that wrapping paper.
After the presents were all open, we all dispersed to different areas of the house.
A few minutes later, I found out that the tool kit Tanner and Owen were playing with included a number of real sawblades. Thankfully Owen was only really interested in the hammer, and no one was injured.
Then we filled up on dinner, drove home, put the kids down to bed, and waited a bit to go down and check out Santa's handiwork.
Before we knew it, the big day had arrived.
What happened next is really best described with a video, so I'll break our normal flow of content and drop one right here in the middle of the post.
Christmas Morning
Never underestimate the power of the stocking.
Not long after that, we bundled up and headed outside to enjoy the fruits of Santa.
We drove around the block a few times, crashed into the curb once or twice, then decided it was time to bring the boys back in to the heated air of the house.
Before we knew it, we'd run out of time in the morning. We had made some plans for our Christmas afternoon, and it was time to head out. For some reason, the wacky people at the NBA decided to have the Mavericks season opener on Christmas. They were raising the championship banner, and Christy had been talking about going since they won last season.
No, those aren't our seats (we wish), we were just hoping to catch a glimpse of one of the players during the shootaround. Unfortunately, we only caught a fleeting glance at Vince Carter before we had to move back up to our seats.
The boys had a really good time screaming "GO GO GO" and trying to figure out what was going on down there.
As everything wound down, Owen got a little bit antsy. I decided to take him to the gift shop during a time out. He wasn't interested in any of the keychains or shirts or jerseys, but he did seem to like this thing.
We watched to the end of a rough game (still had a good time), failed to pick up a mini championship banner (should have left early!), then drove the kids home for dinner.
As if two Christmases weren't enough, when we woke up the next morning we piled into the car for Christmas number three.
That night we decided to try out something new with the boys. Instead of sleeping in separate rooms as they've been accustomed to their whole lives, we put them to bed in the same room. Aside from some coughing from Max (he's feeling much better now) everything seemed to go well. Morning came, and Christy was the first to enter the room (because I wouldn't get up). I didn't witness the scene, but apparently Max was holding up Owen's Lightning McQueen feetie pajamas that Nan had given him for Christmas. "Mommy, Owen took off his pajamas," he helpfully informed her while Owen jumped around the crib in his diaper.
The next night they slept in separate rooms.
The rest of our visit was filled with the usual insanity.
After that, we packed up all the gifts and made the journey back home. All around, I'd say it was a pretty good Christmas. All that's left now is to link you to the huge trove of photos I left out and to deliver the promised set of videos. I'll try to make it quick so I can get back to playing with my remote controlled shark.
Jingle Bells
Max is getting pretty good at this.
Driving
A bit of motion to go with the photos.
Zombie
There was a constant demand to play this "game".
Puzzles
Hooray!
Sliding
Have to find some way to entertain ourselves. It's not like we got toys for Christmas or anything.
Thus completes this marathon of a post. Hope you had as fun a holiday season as we did, and that we'll all have a good year in 2012!
