What I'll remember this year

The kidlings had a BLAST this Christmas.

What was a great joy was watching the Bear open his first gift on Christmas Eve. It was from his 2nd cousins (SS & AS) - the two daughters of my hubby's first cousin. Let me tell you that the Bear adores these two girls. We don't see them that often, but he totally remembers them. When they walked in, he ran over to them. He immediately started positioning himself to go in for hugs. It was too funny.

Anyway, I digress. They were going to have to leave for the evening as it was already 8:30pm. We went into the livingroom of my MILs house. They gave the Bear a small wrapped item. He carefully tore it up. He took little 1x1 inch squares off the item and took each torn piece off his fingers. So meticulous. It reminded me of the Princess when she first learned about opening gifts. She still is very meticulous about getting every piece of wrap off the gift.

So there was the Bear slowly opening the gift. Then he sees that all the wrap is off the small box. What does he do? He says "WOW!" and then begins to jump up and down continuing to say "Wow!" He didn't even KNOW what it was! He was just so excited that he'd gotten the thing unwrapped! Everyone was smiling and laughing at the scene. It was a small ornament that said "Godchild" on it. The girls' father is my son's godfather.

The Princess opened her gift from her 2nd cousins a bit more quickly. It was a baby doll. She ended up getting it out of the box (can you believe how secure these toys are in their boxes nowadays?) and began taking care of her baby. She has christened the baby "Sunshine".

The Bear then opened up his actual gift. You should have seen him once they got it out of the box. He immediately put the helmet on his head. He wore it rest of the night. Then he tried to sit in the dump side of the truck. That's right folks! He backed his bottom into that little truck. It was so funny! The hat on his head. The shovel in one hand. The trowel in the other hand. Sitting there in the back of the truck.

It was THIS Tonka Truck.

It was such a joy to watch the two of them. It was not the overload scene of the next day that I'm going to cherish about this Christmas. It's going to be this Christmas Eve scene. My son in the dump truck and my daughter craddling a baby doll.