Star of Wonder

Get ready folks, I'm posting lots of pictures here. Our Christmas was, in a word, fabulous. Really, the whole of the holiday season has been so special. We've been able to spend time with all of our immediate families and that has not happened in quite some time.

As one of my dear friends reminded me, kids bring back some of the wonder of Christmas...thinking through the Christmas story and the humility of a babe in a manger. Even though Ella and Noah are unaware of what is going on, just having them around brought back some of that for me.

Our morning started, per the Matt and Nicole tradition, with opening stockings on the bed. I forgot to dress the kids in special holiday jammies so they look like little space cadets in their sleep sacks.

Ella immediately found the castanet that I hung on the tree and she was quite efficient and getting it off the tree.

Nini and Papa Horton came over for breakfast: strawberry cream cheese stuffed baked french toast, berries, bacon and coffee.

We played.

Opened a few gifts.

Even Moses enjoyed his presents.

After morning naps, we headed over to Grandpa and Nana Potoshnick's house for the second round of festivities.

Of course, the kids were more enamored with the trimmings than the gifts themselves. The hits of the day were 1) an iTunes gift card that Ella gnawed on 2) the ribbon that Noah twirled in his fingers 3) the walnut that Ella carried around for a good hour and 4) the tins of Altoids that were instant musical instruments.

We attempted a shot of Nana with the grandbabies, but Noah would not comply.

You see, he had many things to check out, such as the tissue paper in the box...

Before Nana Potoshnick's Christmas dinner was served (which was, of course, wonderful), my dad and I put together one of the walkers. By the way, I realized that this was a mere foretaste of what Christmases in the future will look like...snap the wheel on the chassis, insert antennae into the hole...so on and so forth. Ella took to the walker right away.

And so did Noah.

It was indeed a sweet day. I do have to say though, my favorite memory of the day was sitting by our tree before bedtime. The room was glowing with twinkle lights and we were all gladdened to just be together. I could not have imagined what Christmas day would have looked like a year ago. I like the way things turned out.