I not only survived the holidays, but truly enjoyed them! It is absolutely wonderful to have seen how excited Gray was about all the presents. I think next year will be even better when we have 2 that actually care about presents (Clara obviously didn't even notice them this year). Our Christmas schedule was pretty full! On the 24th the kids opened presents from us and each other. Gray got a Hokey Pokey Elmo from Chris and I and some pj's from Clara. He was hilarious dancing along with Elmo! Clara got a Lily doll (from leap frog) from us and pj's from Gray. Chris and I decided this year to just get a laptop for a present to each of us. Even though we both knew what it was we wrapped it and Chris opened it anyway. :)
The next morning when Gray woke up I went in there to get him out of his crib and as I was changing his diaper he said, "Presents....tree." I guess I shouldn't have told him the night before that when he woke up there would be more presents under the tree. I then yelled to Chris to get the video camera and turn the Christmas tree lights on so Gray would be able to see his presents. In the mean time I am keeping Gray in his room and he is trying his hardest to push past me to run and get his presents, it was adorable how excited he was! Once we let him out of the room he literally ran down the hall to the Christmas tree. Santa had all of his presents set up in a pile (unwrapped). The funniest part of the morning was that Gray immediately grabbed a pack of Thomas underwear from the pile and had to show those (all excitedly) to Chris and I before he could think about looking at anything else. I thought it was too funny how excited he was about underwear. He did end up moving on to his other gifts. He played with most all of them a little before we ended up getting the train tracks out of the box. He then ignored all presents other than his train track. He spent days playing with nothing but that track and the trains that go with it.
Clara slept through Gray's finding of the presents, but when she did wake up we showed her the pile of presents Santa had left for her - not that she cared at all. When then had cinnamon rolls and just enjoyed being a family.
The next morning we went to church. Chris had to help run the visuals so he had to be there early. That left me to get both kids ready and to the church. We, of course, were running behind and I was hurrying to get both kids inside since it was freezing outside. I was pushing Clara in the stroller and Gray was walking. About half way from our car to the building I noticed that Gray was walking funny. I stop to see what is going on and realize he only had 1 shoe on. The ground was literally freezing and my child had taken his shoe off and left it in the car. At this point I didn't want to turn around and go back to the car and have them both outside in the cold for longer than they had to be, so I just picked up Gray and hurried inside. Once he was down to his classroom his teacher just had him take the other shoe off and everything was fine.
On the next day (Monday), I had my post baby appointment. I am proud to say I only had 8 pounds to lose to get back to prebaby weight at that appointment. After I was done with that appointment I hurried home and we finished loading the car and headed out on the long trip to my parents' house. We then celebrated Christmas with my parents, siblings, nieces, and nephew on the 28th. On the 30th we headed to Memphis to see Chris's family. That night we opened presents there. Then on the 1st we went to Oxford to celebrate with my extended family. That night we met up with some friends and Gray and Clara got the last of a huge slue of presents. We then headed back to Bentonville on the 3rd. We were all exhausted from our week plus of opening presents, but I wouldn't have had it any other way. It was very much worth the exhaustion.
