Christmas morning #1... the calm before the storm

The "calm" I'm referring to in the title is the lovely Christmas morning we had together, last Saturday, before heading out to visit our families.

The "storm" I'm referring to is the coughing, sneezing, fever, diarrhea, vomiting illness that has ripped through each one of our boys, starting Sunday and still going strong today. Oh. My. God. What a week. Thank God Chris and I are still fine (knocking on wood right now!) because our boys needed us healthy and caring for four sick little guys is a two person job for sure.

But let's start with last Saturday. It was WONDERFUL! We woke up with the boys and watched them excitedly slide down the stairs to see what had unfolded during the night.

Here are some highlights:

I love the look on Colin's face in this picture as he discovers that Santa has eaten almost all of the cookies he baked and left for him.



And then that turned into, "Ohhhh, Santa left some crumbs... may as well finish those off...."

Colin determined that Santa's sleigh must have brushed the trees upon landing on our roof. How else could you explain the branches that must have gotten stuck in his coat and then left on our floor??

Then it was time to open gifts!

These scooters were a favorite this year. We got two for the boys to share and we now realize that two more may have to arrive around birthday time. They are a hit... and hard to share!

I got Colin a guitar as kind of a last minute impulse purchase. I couldn't help myself. He loves music and putting on "concerts" for us. Truthfully, I bought it just to see the look on his face when he opened it.

Worth it.

(I won't even mention that one of the guitar strings totally popped off within the first hour of him playing it! Grrrr! When the boys get over this bug, we'll be heading back to the toy store to "fix" it)

That's Finn there in the center of the photo checking out his new Winnie the Pooh book. Finn LOVES Winnie the Pooh. He's so cute that Finn.

Beautiful chaos.

We spent the rest of the morning playing with their new gifts, making "mini" pancakes (their fav) and just being together. For both Chris and I, it was one of our most favorite mornings ever.

Also, Chris was there too! I don't know why he's not in any of these pictures! I guess he took a lot them :)