Christmas Morning - In Pictures

Another Christmas has come and gone, and the current disarray of my house is proof of it. And proof that my kids have way too much stuff! I thought it was bad before, but that was nothing compared to the chaos that has ensued over the past two days. We had a great Christmas, though, and Rylie and Bryce were two very happy little kids on Christmas morning. The smiles we saw on their faces are worth the mess for sure.

Since this was the first Christmas without my dad, I was a little concerned with how my overall mood would be that day. I did surprisingly well, and the kids kept me distracted most of the day. I ended up having a little breakdown mid-day, but my husband was the only one who saw it, and I managed to keep my sadness to myself for the most part. I missed my dad so much that day, and all I could think about was how much fun he would have had watching the kids open their gifts. My mom even mentioned the same thing several times.

Even though we weren't really in the Christmas spirit like we are most years, we kept our little family traditions. I made our "usual" lasagna for dinner, and my mom and I had our matching pajamas. Unfortunately, we couldn't find similar ones for Rylie like we did last year. I think next year I am going to order matching PJs for the whole family. Shhhh, don't tell Brian!

Our upstairs A/C ended up going out on Christmas Eve (after it had just been "fixed" a couple days earlier) and since it still feels like summer here, the upstairs was too warm for sleeping and my house ended up looking like a scene out of a National Lampoon's movie. My brother was on the couch, my mom was on the beanbags on the floor, and Rylie was in bed with us. She was actually the first one awake, and once she realized what day it was, she wanted everyone up immediately.

We got the coffee going while she examined all of the presents under the tree, and I finally let her wake Bryce up. She FLEW into his room and exclaimed "Bryce! Santa was here!" I got him up and got him a clean diaper, and while I poured a cup of coffee, they started playing with the Step2 Workbench that Santa brought for Bryce.

Rylie was ready to rip into those presents, so she started on her stocking while everyone got situated and ready to watch the madness. She got a little makeup kit in her stocking, which started her Christmas off right.

She was so quick opening her first few presents that Bryce hadn't even opened one by the time she ripped into three or four. She loved the Pucci Pups in the pretty purse that Uncle Danny got for her.

The kids have been watching Toy Story 3 for a while now and love it, so we decided to get the first two movies for them...the first one had Rylie's name on it, and the second was for Bryce.

Rylie only asked Santa for two presents this year - makeup and earrings. You should have seen the look we got when she would tell people that. Yes, we know we are in for it when she is a teenager. I got her the prettiest little heart earrings, and she was so excited when she opened that pretty little box!

Bryce took present opening very seriously. He had to make sure that every speck of paper was off of his gifts, and he would put it all in a pile and then throw it away each time. He got one BIG present, and had to put his whole body in to opening it.

Once he opened a couple of gifts, he really got the hang of it, and started moving at a quicker pace like his sister.

My kids usually eat right after they get out of bed, but of course Rylie didn't want anything to do with breakfast that morning. The only problem with that was that the Christmas meltdown came earlier than expected. After opening a few gifts, Bryce was face down on the floor crying about nothing.

At that point, we decided that it was time for some breakfast, so Uncle Danny ran out and got some donuts. You're supposed to eat garbage on Christmas, right? While the kids were enjoying their red and green sprinkled donuts, Chloe enjoyed tearing up all of the toys my mom bought for all of the dogs.

Once blood sugar levels were back up, and the kids had full bellies, they set out for round two of present opening.

They both got slippers - Lightning McQueen for Bryce and Disney Princesses for Rylie.

Bryce kept taking breaks from opening presents to play with his new workbench, which is really cool. He is still a little young for it, but it comes with these little foam cutouts that you can make "real projects" with. He will be building birdhouses in no time!

Rylie was pretty happy about her Disney Princess dolls.

My mom got both of the kids these little music boxes from a craft fair that she went too. They look like little presents, and the kids loved them!

Rylie had been down at my mom's house for the few days before Christmas, and while they were out shopping one day, Rylie picked out this little dress up outfit that she just HAD to have. So my silly mom wrapped it up and put To: Rylie and From: Rylie on the gift tag. Of course Rylie didn't really get the humor in that, but was just happy to finally wear the outfit. (On top of her new Hello Kitty PJs that she just had to change into moments before.)

Bryce loves his Count 'N Crunch Cookie Monster that we included in our Countdown to Black Friday giveaway event. He was constantly feeding him the cookies and counting to three with him. In fact, once he opened Cookie Monster, he didn't want to open any more presents.

Rylie was also growing weary of opening presents by this point, and decided she needed to have her new earrings in. After calling my mom upstairs for help because I couldn't get her starter earrings out, she had her pretty new earrings in.

At this point the kids still had several presents to open, but didn't seem to care. I decided to take them outside to see what Aunt Judy sent them...

A trampoline!!! Rylie was beyond excited! She got in there as fast as she could and started jumping away. To my surprise, after a few minutes, she told Bryce it was his turn.

I think the kids might just think Aunt Judy is cooler than Santa Claus! They took turns jumping, and when the adults got too hot from the Florida sun, we ushered them back into the house.

A few days before Christmas I decided that Bryce needed a Buzz Lightyear since he has been so fascinated with Toy Story 3 lately. We got on Amazon, paid a little more than we would have if I had been willing to brave the mall in the days before Christmas, and it arrived two days before Christmas. I tried to get him to go open more presents, but he just wanted to play with Cookie Monster. I found the Buzz and had Rylie "help" him open it. He hasn't put it down since!

Even though there were still unopened presents, the kids were perfectly happy. Rylie had her makeup and earrings and Bryce had Buzz Lightyear. Life was good.

At some point, Rylie decided to power through and open the rest of her presents.

I told Brian just to go ahead and open the rest of Bryce's presents just so we could start picking up all of the paper, which was not a good idea on my part. A little bit later he came out looking for his presents and said "no more presents?" Yep, total mom fail on Christmas. He didn't seem to care, though, he went back to Buzz and Cookie Monster and forgot all about it.

And Rylie? She was too busy getting into her makeup...

And just a little disclaimer so you guys aren't yelling at the computer screen telling me that my daughter is too young for makeup...she will NOT ever wear this out of the house. I promise. This is for fun and pretend play only. She sees me put on my makeup every day and just wanted some for herself. I'm cool with that.

And here it is...the aftermath of Christmas morning...

Unfortunately, that front room still looks about the same. It isn't all that easy to clean it up with two kids going behind me pulling everything back out again.

Of course we said the same thing we have said the last two years..."these kids got way too much stuff!" We really had no intentions of getting them so much, but it just happened. Between review items and Amazon gift codes, I just couldn't help myself. Now I just need to figure out where to put it all! Oh, and have a yard sale to get rid of the old stuff.

We watched Toy Story movies for pretty much the rest of the day, and had a nice, laid back Christmas dinner. It was exactly how Christmas should be. By the end of the night, we were still exhausted. Even Chloe was curled up on her new bed from Santa, ready to call it a day.

For those that made it to the end of this very long, picture-filled post, I hope you had a wonderful Christmas! What were your kids' favorite presents?