Christmas Eve

On Christmas Eve morning, Ashley, Mikael, Mason and Jennifer came over to my parents' house to celebrate Christmas before we had to head back home. We made sure to take the opportunity to take even more pictures of Mason and Maddie together.

And of course, Joseph hopped in for a few. 

And as he commonly does, only smiled for a few seconds before turning to kiss his sister.

I think he was trying to get Mason and Maddie to give each other kisses, but ended up just smashing their heads together. The impromptu photo shoot ended then, so that the kids could open their gifts.

Mason shared his piano playmat with Madeline over the weekend, and she loved it! She spent so much time playing that we ended up bringing it home with us for her to play with.

Joseph figured he'd open his and her presents, happy to not have to share the unwrapping.

Mason did awesome opening presents! He managed to chew on the presents, and batted at the wrapping paper.

Joseph is definitely getting into more "boy toys" this year, and had asked for a fire engine, helicopter, etc. He managed to get lots of fun new toys!

We spent the morning opening gifts, and then packed up the van to head home. We had plans to have dinner with Jill and Gary, and wanted to drop everything off and pick up their gifts before heading to their house. It made for a crazy day of lots of driving and gifts, but I don't think Joseph minded at all.

The Christmas Eve weekend marked another massive deterioration in Maddie's sleep schedule. Although we tried to keep the kids on their schedule, her night time sleep went downhill quickly and hasn't ever really recovered. :(

Joseph had lots of fun opening more gifts at Nana and Papa's house, after eating a delicious ham dinner. I don't think I've ever had ham as tender and juicy as Jill cooked that day!

Joseph opted to make sure everyone had the obligatory bow on his/her head as we opened the gifts, and helped everyone tear into their presents.

When Nana opened her new slippers, Joseph quickly stole them, put them on and started running around the house. It then turned into a game of hide and seek, with Joseph trying to hide the slippers from Nana.

We made it home rather late, but in enough time to put scatter the reindeer food on the front lawn, put out some cookies for Santa and get the kids to bed before Santa stopped at our house!