christmas morning!!

the boys looking through their stockings! trace woke up at 5 am, but we made him go back to sleep :) at 6:30, when both boys were standing by the bed yelling that santa had come, we decided to get up!

lucas was SO funny... he KISSED each of his gifts! :-) trace loved his thundercats castle... and daddy got a new coffee mug with the boys handprints on it. actually... truth be told, we were at a pottery party, and trace went first. he did his cute little green handprints, but then lucas REFUSED to even have his hand painted. i had already gotten trace to do his, so i couldn't leave a big empty space... so what's a mama to do? grab the closest kid with a similar size hand, paint it blue, get the handprint, and then write lucas, 2 yrs beside the cute little hand! ;o) thank you sweet isabella for filling in!! of course, lucas didn't surprise me.. he's so stubborn i wasn't a bit surprised! i however, surprised myself, by not having a come apart or beating him! haha. i've learned to choose my battles... and handprints were not worth it! plus, we will forever remember these pieces of pottery! :))

SO.... this was the best gift for lucas... an ET plush doll. i know, i know, it's crazy wierd that my 2 yr old loves ET like he does... but he saw parts of the movie at bitsy and poppi's and became OBSESSED! above is the picture when he opened it! just makes my heart happy to see his sweet face with such a big smile!

i mean... look how happy he is! i just LOVE these pics with his facial expressions!

for trace, this was the THUNDERCAT christmas. i didn't realize how important the SWORD of OMENS is... but apparently... this sweet 4 yr old boy could have gotten NOTHING else for christmas and been very happy and content!!

the minute he realized what he had opened, he was so excited! he learned out how to flip out the side parts, and how to make the sword long and how to make it say "thundercats HO!" and "give me sight beyond sight." stuff mama still can't figure out! ha. boys... and their swords!!

and... THIS is what mama got!! nate picked 2 of my favorite pics from our recent family photos, and drew them. he did something different this time. he's been drawing for over 7 years, and has drawn close to 100 portraits, and he has always drawn in just black and white. this time, he decided to take a chance and color the eyes with colored pencils... ohmygosh i LOVE LOVE LOVE LOVE them!! nothing more special than a handmade heartfelt drawing by my incredibly blessed and amazingly talented husband of my sweet and beautiful boys! (that's a lot of adjectives!)

it didn't take us too long to open and clean up presents. it's a good thing, b/c christmas morning was just the beginning of a super long day! first stop: church. so... we got ready and loaded in the van, and off to church we went... with ET and the sword of omens in hand of course. no really... i'm serious! #momofboys