Christmas Morning (part 1)

On Christmas morning, Elora woke to find her stocking packed with all sorts of goodies.

After taking everything out of her stocking, she ran into Oliver’s room to wake him up and show him the treats he had waiting for him too. Oliver didn’t waste any time diving into the chocolate.

We gave each of them a little key chain LED flashlight. Oliver shined it on the ceiling and said, “moon!” because the beam of light looked like the moon. We didn’t realize how much of a hit the flashlights would be. Perhaps this will have to become a regular present since there is something pretty cool about a toy that helps you to see in the dark.

Marion was still pretty tired…

While the kids waited for Nana and Grampy to wake up, we turned on this special Christmas concert with a Norwegian singer named Sissel and the Mormon Tabernacle Choir. The kids really loved it. In fact, Oliver asked to watch it all day, every day after the first time he saw it. He calls Sissel a princess, and calls the concert “Princess Music”.

Here’s Marion in her Christmas morning jammies.

For the first few presents we tried to have the kids take turns. Even though we’re leaving soon and didn’t want to have many presents, the kids ended up with way too much!

Oliver didn’t seem to mind that.

It’s always great to watch the kids open their presents. Oliver gets excited if you can keep him away from his candy long enough.

A Thomas the Train set, for a little boy who loves trains and buses. Meanwhile you can notice Elora decorating the tree in the background. She removed the ribbons from each of the presents and tied them on the tree.

More presents!

Each of the kids got these little viewfinder things that we all had when we were kids.

Finally, a present for baby Marion. Elora was sad that Marion didn’t get much, but she already has a lot of clothes and obviously doesn’t care too much at this age!

Her first bib! It’s hard to believe she’ll be using this in a couple months… she’s already growing up quite fast.

Here’s Elora with her little princess notebook. She loves to draw and color, so she is a happy kid if she gets new notebooks to play with.

Karen got some fancy Equadorian chocolate, which was all very tasty. Unfortunately for her, she left one of the bars down low after she had only eaten one square, and Oliver the chocolate monster ate the whole bar and brought her another one to open… She was a little disappointed and kept the rest of her presents out of the reach of little hands…

The kids each got a backpack from Grandma and Grandpa. They were excited, especially Oliver. He put it on right away and was so happy to show everyone. Now he wears it around the house every day and wants to take it with him everywhere he goes. Too cute.

Elora keeps her backpack full of books, toys, and markers. She doesn’t want to lose it, so she likes to keep it hanging right by her bed whenever she sleeps.

A really big mug for a whole lot of hot chocolate!

Here is our lovely tree after Elora was finished decorating it with all the ribbons.

Little Marion fell asleep about halfway through all the excitement, but Oliver was still excited to hold her while Elora was playing with all the new toys!