Merry Christmas!

I can't believe it's the end of 2009 already. Our day started off early. Really early. As in, 3am early! Kyrie came in at 3am and started talking about something. I can't even tell you what she was talking about because it was way too early for me to listen. :) We basically told her to go away and to please, please, please sleep for at least 3 more hours. She wouldn't have it. After I think 30 minutes of her bugging us, Derk all but threw his laptop at her and told her to go watch a show. That made her happy. But then Derk and I were up off and on for the next few hours, quieting her down and checking to make sure nobody was getting into the presents. I was so afraid she'd wake up the other kids if I fell back asleep and that I'd wake up to all the presents opened. Kyrie came back in at 6, way too excited to wait any longer. So we agreed to get up and let her wake the other kids up at that point. We were done opening presents by about 7am. *yawn*

Even with such an early start to our day, it was still the best Christmas ever. It was extra special because it was our first Christmas in our very own home. And it was super fun for us because we had purchased things we knew the kids would flip out over. I just love seeing the kids' excitement.

Here are the kids with their presents from Santa

The girls with their stashes


Spiderman playing with his new Spiderman

I also got a couple videos. Scott and Jean (Derk's parents) had talked to us about what to get for the kids, and we'd given them an idea for Kyrie. I'm so glad we talked to them about it and knew they were getting it for her because I knew ahead of time to catch her reaction on video!

Photo Sharing - Video Sharing - Photo Printing

After all the presents were opened, we noticed there was an envelope on the tree from Santa (the video isn't the best quality, because like I said, it was really early and wasn't quite light enough for the camera)....

Photo Sharing - Video Sharing - Photo Printing

After the excitement of the trampoline died down, we came back inside and watched Miracle on 34th Street. When that was over, Derk and I started on breakfast. One of the traditions from my side of the family is that my mom always makes a yummy crepe breakfast, so that's what we did. Kyrie refuses to let that tradition die! She looks forward to it all. year. long. Then we just played the rest of the day and relaxed (and napped!). It really was the best Christmas.

We hope you all had a fantastic Christmas. We sure miss celebrating with our family, but you are always in our hearts! Merry Christmas to all of you. We love you!