Christmas Part 2

After waking up, opening gifts from Santa and eating breakfast with Oma and Opa, Hylke's brother, sister and their families joined us to open presents.  We stayed until about 10 am and then headed to my parents house for more Christmas fun.

For several years we've enjoyed a Christmas brunch with my family, and every year we ask my dad to make the same thing- Holiday Morning French Toast.  It is sooooo yummy.  We usually arrive, eat and then open gifts, but this year all the kiddos were anxious to open gifts, so we opened some, ate and then opened some more.  Noah was SO excited about each one of his gifts.  It was so fun to watch him...it's the first year he's really enjoyed Christmas.  He got a talking Woody doll, two new Thomas the Train wooden trains (James and Henry), a big set of Jungle Animals, new wooden train tracks, some books, clothes and a new bike!!  He was in heaven.  Elliana had just as much fun opening and playing with her presents.  As has happened with Noah in the past, we brought home one unopened gift...she was too interested in playing with the things she had already opened, and didn't care about opening the last gift.  That's ok, her birthday is less than two months away....she'll never know. :)

The kids are at such a great age.  They loooove being at Grandma and Baca's house and both of them gave my parents some great cuddle time.  Elliana would ask for my dad first thing in the morning and Noah loved the special time reading books with my mom and playing with "Tom the cat" on my moms phone. They also had a great time playing with their cousins.  So fun to watch them make memories.  We really had a great time relaxing, eating, laughing and enjoying time with each otherHere are some pics from our time with my family:

My nieces and Noah were the present hander-outers :)

 

Elliana talking on her new "alphaberry" maybe she'll want to use mommy's blackberry less :)

 

This sweet smile shows the excitement he had after opening each gift 

 

We teased my mom (mercilessly, I'm afraid) about the lack of gift tags on the gifts this year.  She had to peek in the bags to see whose was whose.  She got lots of new gift tags the day after Christmas. :)

Elliana loved her new purse--and all of the goodies that it came with!

 Noah loved his new James train--thank you, Grandma and Baca!

 And his new Woody doll. :)

 

 Elliana loved snuggle time with "baca" 

we found her like this several times over the weekend

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