The Best Christmas Yet!

This was the best Christmas yet.  For many reasons but primarily because the kids had so much fun searching for that perfect gift and were so excited to give it! The kids picked out their Angel gifts for the trees at church and at school.  Matt carried a gift in every day for a whole week and thought that was so cool!

We enjoyed working on our lists for Santa.  Both kids had a hard time coming up with things they wanted but both thought it was important to put their age so Santa would know.  Matt's list was pretty interesting.  Football sheets?  Yes that was his idea.  Football cleats? Well, we helped him with that one.  And the last item is a book.  Perfect for my awesome reader!!  We heard that Mrs. Claus searched high and low for the Optimus Prime transformer truck.  She doesn't like Walmart and ended up in 3 different Walmarts!  The last one she had to run into before the last one was gone.  Santa asked her if she had to knock anyone over and luckily she didn't but she might have. 

Marlie's list was cute.  We saw a "Hello Kitty Nail & Body Set" at Macy's in October and she wanted it so bad.  I told her she had to remember it and put it on her list.  3 months later she remembered exactly!  And 3 months later...no Hello Kitty Nail & Body Set to be found!  Mrs. Claus was going crazy and managed to find something similar which she loved but said was not the same.  I'm not sure where the Hello Kitty suitcase or Rapunzel sleeping bag came from but she was excited about these too. 

Matt was very excited to go to the Santa shop at school.  He came home and was so excited and wanted to give us our gifts right away.  When I told him he had to wait, he couldn't stand it.  He was also very excited to go shopping for a gift for he and Marlie to give to Dad.  He insisted on a Baylor RGIII Heisman shirt and we found one online.  On Christmas, Matt insisted that Dad be the first to open a gift and gave him the box with the tshirt.  Matt couldn't wait to give me a velcro wallet with peace signs that he bought at school.  He even had a dollar and 2 quarters in it and showed me the secret pocket.  It was awesome.  You will see the velcro wallet in use in my Coach purse!!!

I took Marlie to buy a gift for Matt.  He said he wanted the board game Sorry so I figured that would be perfect.  Marlie talked about buying a football all the way to the store.  I told her he had one already so the game might be better.  We picked up the game and as we were headed to checkout she stopped me and told me that was not what she wanted to get for Matt.  We went up and down a few aisles and then she spotted it...a Texans pillow pet!  She jumped up and down.  It was Matt's favorite gift of Christmas. 

We went to children's mass at church on Christmas Eve.  It was packed but we got to see all of our friends and the kids got to sit upfront which they loved.  We came home and snapped a few photos before the festivities began.  We had a great meal and cupcakes to celebrate Jesus' birthday. 

We started off with an intense game of gift card exchanging where Marlie was the happiest person ever stealing a Red Lobster gift card from me.  She was literally screaming...that would have been a great Red Lobster commercial.  Matt had fun stealing a Toys 'R' Us card from Uncle Jay.  Marlie (and I) were really pumped about the cotton candy machine Uncle Jay bought for her.  The kids were excited to find that they are going to Disney World! 

As if it couldn't get any better...Santa did make a stop at our house.  Matt said he heard him come down the chimney!! You can see him running down with his pillow pet in tow! 

Matt loved his Baylor Alamo Bowl shirt, Uno and his books.  He got his transformer, football cleats and football sheets too.  We got a note from Santa that the elves are still working on his special Texans jersey and Matt thinks it might be taking long because it has his name on it...smart kid.  But Matt's favorite gift was a guitar Santa brought.  Santa wasn't sure if he'd like it, but he is already talking about taking lessons.  Of course as you guessed, our singer and performer quickly grabbed the guitar and started playing too!

So what did Marlie think about everything?  Well she would have been happy if Santa had just brought this monkey.  It's name is Cutie Monkey and it goes everywhere.  She was a bit excited about the Rapunzel sleeping bag. 

Here she is inspecting the Hello Kitty Nail & Body Set that looks different than the one she spotted 3 months ago. 

And here is the Lalaloopsy doll that Mrs. Claus also searched high and low for.  She could have cared less to be honest.  I'll tuck it away and bring it out in 6 months and she'll love it! 

Maybe the second best part about Christmas was that we spent the entire day in our pj's playing games and resting with our pillow pets and animals.  We hope you had a wonderful Christmas too.  One of my favorite parts of the season is getting all the wonderful Christmas cards and watching all these adorable families grow.  Happy Birthday Jesus!