More Christmas

Christmas morning we were able to all be home together as a family to open presents. Eric had to work overnight and got home right after the kids were up and fed, all ready to open presents! Both Grace and Micah had so much fun opening their presents this year. It is more exciting for us now that they are interested in the presents. I don't think we even had a Christmas morning with Grace when she was a baby, we just got a few things for her around Christmas time.

A couple people gave us presents for the kids in the weeks before Christmas so they had quite a pile to open up on Christmas morning.

Micah got...another tractor!

What I learned from opening all those kids presents is that maybe next year I will remove all toys from the packaging before wraping them. If I ever see another toy taped, stapled, twist or zip tied to a cardboard and plastic box it will be far too soon. Why toy manufactures feel that every toy must not only be securly locked inside nearly inpenetrable plastic covered with cardboard but also tied down to yet more cardboard I will never understand! Is it so shaking wraped presents yealds no sound? Is it so the plastic toy inside doesn't break on it's trip from whatever country it was manufactured in, to a warehouse, to another warehouse, to a store then home? My personal favorite was the tiny doll and her even smaller dog that were tied and bound down so well I had to get Eric to help me release her from the packaging. After he worked on it for a while he asked if the plastic was even supposed to be removed!

We had fun opening presents with the kids and Eric even had one for me! We usually just get something for each other sometime before Christmas and call it a present. Eric bought himself a flat screen TV and we bought a camera for me. The camera we bought before Grace was born quit working this summer and we really need a functioning camera for when baby Earl is born. I'm glad we got the camera now because we ended up getting a different brand than we had before so I am having a little trouble figuring out the settings and finding what works best in each situation. My hope is to be able to get the camera all set and ready to go so when Earl is born all Eric has to do is turn it on and take pictures of our perfect little man.