A celebration of magnificent proportions

Not to make these Christmas posts more than they are but I couldn't go to sleep on Christmas Eve.  With this being the first Christmas that Charlotte understood what was going on and was excited about Santa I was just beyond myself excited for the morning.  I couldn't wait for her to see what Santa left her and I couldn't wait to give her our presents.  I just wanted her to be so happy and have so much fun.

And through the time spent not being able to go to sleep (honestly, probably only 15 minutes) I kept thinking about Matthew 7:11 which says "So if you sinful people know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your heavenly Father give good gifts to those who ask him."  And it was with that thought of how excited God must be to watch us "unwrap" a gift that he has given us because I was so excited to wait and see Charlotte unwrap her gifts from us.  An amazing thought!

Eventually, Christmas morning finally arrived and we had a lot of fun.  We spent the beginning the morning with just our family and then invited our parents and siblings over for brunch so that everyone could see the kids on Christmas morning and see Charlotte play with her gifts.  I think it was a great idea and hopefully everyone else did too!

We started out with our tradition of reading the Christmas story before we go downstairs to see what Santa brought.  This year we read the Little Golden Book version.  I love this tradition!  It is so nice to start our morning focusing on the real meaning of Christmas plus we get to be all snuggly before all of the chaos starts!

Once we finished reading we headed downstairs to see what Santa brought.  James went into his bouncer so that Jason and I could video and take pictures!

We checked out Santa's milk and cookies!  By the looks of the crumbs left on his plate it appears that he was hungry when he made it to our house!

Both kids got lots of great stuff from Santa!  He knew just what they wanted!

James hung out in his bouncer most of the time.  He will enjoy Christmas much more next year!

Charlotte was so excited about everything but was most excited about her purple puppy and black kitty cat that Santa brought her!  These were the only things that she asked for from Santa so we were glad he didn't forget!

She also loved the puzzle of a family picture that Santa left! What a neat idea! And the 12 piece puzzle has big enough pieces that she can do it with just a little help!

Charlotte LOVED her purple kitty cat tent that Santa brought!  Maybe now she'll stop hanging out in an empty kitchen cabinet and play in her tent instead!  It even has a door that she can close to keep us or Luca (or her little brother when he starts crawling!) out!  She got Daddy to hang out inside it with her for a little while too.

We took a pit stop between Santa presents and our presents for some pictures!  And then it was time to unwrap presents!

Charlotte decided mid-December that she wanted to get James a monkey for Christmas.  She came up with it all by herself.  I'm sad that I didn't get a picture of her, James, and the monkey but he loved it!

Not long after we finished presents it was time for our family to come over!  We got Charlotte a breakfast consisting of a Monkey Muffin and a cupcake for Jesus' birthday (the breakfast of champions!) and she invited her grandparents to sit at her coloring table with her.  Her uncles and Mommy and Daddy were left out and had to eat at the kitchen table!

After breakfast she took everyone in the den to show them her toys!  With everything out there wasn't a lot of room for people to sit down but I think they still enjoyed getting to see her with everything!

Right before everyone had to head out we took some family pictures.  

We had a wonderful morning celebrating Christmas!  We put the kids down for their naps and waited for them to get up so that we could continue our celebrations with more family that evening!