Christmas Morning

Last night the girls were in bed, night-time songs had been sung, blankets were tucked in, Santa letters and cookies were set out on the table, stockings were hanging in wait, and The Night Before Christmas had been read (by my mom) by 10:30 PM. That should have done it right? You know by now that the answer is no - that is WRONG! I can't even count the times that at least one girl was either up, calling for me or some version of both during the night. They were way too wired. And of course Christmas is also Lalie's birthday so she was completely over the top all day Christmas Eve.

After putting them to bed, I did laundry and other chores then went into my room and locked the door to wrap a few last minute things. Thank goodness I locked the door because Lydia scared me to death knocking on the door. I think this was somewhere around midnight at this point. She wondered where the stockings had gone and I told her she had probably scared Santa back up the chimney. Of course he can't come when children are awake I said. As I took her back to her room Lalie was wide awake as well and ready to party. Ugh. I told them they weren't allowed to get out of bed again until 7:00 AM. Finally, kids were asleep and Santa was able to get his work done. And then Lalie called from her bedroom saying she needed me...

There were several other calls and visits to my room but 4:00 am was all Lydia could do. She came into my room several times at that point and of course I was dead tired and told her to go back to bed. Lydia begged, "Can't I just open my scotting?!" (she can't quite get that word "stocking down). "No!" was the answer. Apparently the desire to open that stocking was too much for her and the 7:00 AM minimum was not something she could handle because when my mom arrived a little after 7 AM and was watching them open their stockings she noticed that Lydia was pulling several things out of her stocking that weren't wrapped. I felt like a truck had hit me due to lack of sleep and wasn't very awake but noticed after the stocking was all unwrapped that some of our wrapping paper was in the pile, not just Santa's paper. I asked Lydia about it and that's when it all came out that Lydia had opened some presents earlier in the morning in her stocking. She said she then rewrapped them in our paper. I'm still not all clear on it since the presents were apparently unwrapped when they came out of the stocking but I gave up on that interrogation.

One of her favorite things from the stocking was a ponytail of fake hair. You'll see it in most of the pictures of her below. I also noticed that when I downloaded the pictures from this morning there was a picture taken on my camera at 4:01 this morning. Hmmm.


During present opening the girls did a great job. It was hard for Lydia to slow down but neither complained when they were out of presents to open and seemed happy. Another favorite present of Lydia's was a box of "fancy shoes" I got on ebay that I gave to both girls to share. Lydia wasn't too happy about sharing a present but they had fun opening it together.



I had each of the girls write a letter to my mom telling things they like about her and/or remember doing with her. The photo below is of Lalie looking at her card with my mom. My mom's eyes are closed but I really liked the picture anyway.

I made a card for my mom with a picture of the boat she is taking on a cruise with her friends in about a week. That's what she and Lydia are looking at below.