A Merry Christmas to All!

Our Christmas this year turned out to be rather anticlimactic. This was the first year that we've stayed at home with our little family to celebrate Christmas day on our own rather than with grandparents and extended family. We carried over a few beloved traditions from our childhood and came up with some new ones as well. The one thing we hadn't planned on was the kids getting sick.

Leah came down with some kind of bug on Christmas Eve - we could tell she wasn't feeling well when she told Lincoln he could open the present to both of them from their Grandma Marynel. Of course, she was still determined to wait up to see Santa Claus. Eventually everyone was moved to their beds and Santa was able to make an appearance and we were able to sleep in until almost 8 Christmas morning! In fact, we finally went in to wake Lincoln up and he wanted to go back to sleep until we reminded him that Santa had come...

Then he took up his post near the tree to watch the presents and impatiently wait for the rest of us to finish breakfast. Lincoln managed to make it through opening the presents before he started running a fever as well, so he and Leah ended up lounging in front of their new videos while Peter played with everyone's toys.He was very excited - although you could sort of tell that he wasn't sure why he was so excited, at least until we started opening presents. Here he is trying out the new easel while wearing Lincoln's new bike helmet. He had the run of the place until he succumbed to the bug just before bedtime. Luckily, it seems to just be a 24-hour variety bug and we are hoping everyone will be feeling better by the time we head out to Grandma's house.