Christmas day.

I took this picture Christmas Eve after Brian and I had finished wrapping and setting things up for the girls.

Brown paper packages tied up with strings.

My older girls have mastered the art of the head tilt, and look a lot alike here to me.

Fruitsnacks!

A bike helmet.

Happy girls with their new dolls!

My mom sewed the cutest jammie pants for the girls with DUCK fabric!  The reason this is wonderful is because when we were little we called ALL of our pajamas “ducks” because my older brother had a pair of jammies that had a duck on them, so he started calling all of his pajamas “ducks”, and we followed suit.

Sometime after 11 a.m. we went over to Brian’s parents house to enjoy the rest of the day with them.

While we waited for Barbara to wake up the girls joined Jared and Deborah in Skyping with Deborah’s parents.

Somebody is excited for Christmas!

I love it when my babies gnaw on strings and look like they’re wearing dentures.  Hattie was best known for this.

“Yay!  A monkey that plays peek-a-boo!”

Brian and I filled those pants with gifts for Barbara and DeWin.  A few days before Christmas, Barbara took Deborah and I to lunch and told us a sweet story about DeWin and Barbara’s first Christmas as a married couple.  They went home to Barbara’s family for Christmas and didn’t bring their stockings, knowing they were now adults and didn’t expect them to be filled.  When Barbara’s mom questioned them about forgetting their stockings, DeWin had an idea—after everyone had gone to bed, he tied up the bottoms of his jeans and hung them where his stocking should have been, in humor.  In the morning, he got up early and when he saw that Barbara’s mom had stuffed his jeans full, he just couldn’t believe it.  He was so surprised and went to wake up Barbara to tell her what had happened.  Barbara’s mom had filled his jeans with cans and flour and sugar and other food supplies for them to take back to school.  She had been so generous with them, and he was so grateful!  Because of the magic they experienced that first Christmas, they both decided they wanted to make Christmas as magical as they could for their children—and they certainly have!

We got the girls bumblebee jammies for Christmas—she’s the happiest little bee1