OUR FIRST FAMILY CHRISTMAS

This was our first Christmas morning with just ourselves. Part of us really missed our family, but the other part was really excited to share this moment with just our family. And honestly, we were more excited about Christmas than we can ever remember. There's nothing more fun than watching your kids - who really get it now - enjoy Christmas morning. It was such a blast! And we took just a few pictures to document it:

This was what our tree looked like Christmas Eve

And this was Christmas morning!

(Good thing we had a big empty front room for Santa to leave all his presents)

But the first thing that the kids saw was the letter Santa left them and their stockings

And it's no surprise that our Christmas morning, which started at about 7 AM, lasted about 4 hours, when it took the kids half an hour just to get through their stockings! Mom and Dad had to remind them that Santa had actually left other things for them as well by the Christmas tree

After finally making it into the front room, the first thing CJ saw was the tents that Santa brought them.

Mattie was a little freaked out to go in her tent at first, but eventually she warmed up to it...but not until after she saw this:

Mattie definitely found her favorite part of the kitchen

After some playing with the kitchen, it was time to actually unwrap some gifts, starting with the gifts from Santa (all the Santa gifts were in green Santa paper, all piled together by the play kitchen)

Santa gave CJ a race track...

...and he gave Mattie a laughing/crying dolly

Plus, Santa gave them both Zhu Zhu pets:

(after we saw this warning we weren't so sure Santa made the best decision :)

Plus, the kids got games, movies, and a Book of Mormon story book from Santa as well.

Then it was time to open the rest of the gifts:

(not all pictured)

Including this beautiful sweater and earrings from my mom:

(picture taken in Seattle)

Pillow pets from Grandma Forsgren (Paige's mom):

And the fun gifts from my sister, Melanie:

Then it was time to play!

And clean up!

And finally eat

Traditional angel chime and gotta have the German pancakes

And finally, our tradition of one picture with all our gifts:

(yes, those are tickets to the Seahawks/Rams game to decide the NFC West Title)

(yes, those are diamond earrings)

Merry Christmas!!