Christmas 2009

I don't have a ton of pictures from Christmas since Samuel was already recording video of it all. Samuel was off work in the morning, so it was really nice to actually have Christmas morning at our own house and see the kids reaction in the morning.

The kids were excited to leave cookies and milk out for Santa (not sure why I don't have a picture of that). Santa even left them a little note in return.

One of my favorite parts of the morning was when Hannah noticed that Santa left half of a cookie on the plate (they left him SIX cookies!) and immediately shoved it in her mouth. She is definitely not one to let a cookie go to waste.

Helene's toy was a big hit with everyone!

Hannah loved her princesses

And Sammy set up freeways for his new
cars pretty much all around the house
(nothing like a photo to show me that I need to
clean the carpet on the stairs, huh?)

In the afternoon, we headed over to my parents house for presents there and Christmas dinner. The cousins had a great time playing together.

Hannah and Emma can always find some fun in the toy room

Sammy and Ira have really gotten into Monopoly the past
few times they've been at Grandma and Grandpa's house.
(Good thing Aunt Christine got them Junior Monopoly for Christmas!)

Cute boy...

Helene and Sean love the new toy

Just look at that adorable face. He is a mini-Mark!

The girls hanging out in Grandpa's chair

It really is so fun to see how excited the kids get about Christmas--they really got into it this year, asking me all kinds of questions about Santa and his reindeer. The loved decorating the tree and reading Hannah's new favorite book "'Twas the Night Before Christmas". We've been reading it all month and watching lots of holiday shows too--"Merry Christmas Charlie Brown" has been the show of choice for the past few years. Can't wait to get Helene excited about it next year.