and finally CHIRSTMAS!!!!

christmas with our families is always a few days worth of events. this year we went down to joe's family a week before christmas so we could be back home to visit bud as long as possible. we went and saw christmas lights together and had a nice family dinner for uncle nicks birthday too. but of course the highlight of the visit was exchanging gifts. christmas is so fun with small kids that are soo innocent and excited to open toys.
landens latest toy favorites have been the toy story characters. he loves loves loves buzz lightyear and enjoys woody too. so alot of his gifts were the toy story theme this year. who knows what next years requests will be :)
taylor was easy to please with a baby doll and some cute outfits and a few other baby toys. most of the time she just wants to be involved in whatever her big brother is doing.
poor joe didnt get to unwrap any of his own gifts cause landen wanted to "help". joe LOVES to open presents and to get suprises, but he was a great sport and let landen open nearly ever one of his gifts.
after christmas with the brooks side of the family we were headed home to do christmas morning at our own house. we put out cookies and water (landen didnt want to give him milk) and some baby carrots out on the lawn for the reindeer too.
christmas morning was soo much fun with the two kids. landen was so excited for taylor to get her gifts and he would just talk to her about how fun her things were going to be.
no clue who's present this is being upwrapped, but not superised at all to see that landen is the one doing the unwrapping!
taylor knows how to close all these little doors, but still hasnt figured out how to do all the different knobs to open em back up. guess it'll take a while :)
santa brought taylor some cheerios in her stocking. landen had to open em up for taylor and let her have her treat. gee thanx landen :) gotta love the mess huh!

after christmas at home we still had three more houses to go to! we were in for a very long but fun day!
first up was Nana's house (my mom). we had a ton of people crammed in her not so big living room. and with presents and wrapping paper goin everywhere it was a miracle we all made it out alive.
next up was my grandmas house. she lives on the total opposite side of town as everyone else so thats about a half hour drive. everyone went back to their houses from nana's house and the babies took naps and the grown ups took showers and got dressed. all landen wanted to do was play with this new toys.
he wanted to ride in uncle buds truck to get to grandma's house and suprise suprise he fell asleep on the way over there. took him a while to wake back up to do more presents.
the babies were tryin to be so helpful and open out stocking box of household goodies.
we had a big huge christmas dinner at grandma's house and had a great time with family. after her house we all went back home to let the babies take another nap and then off to grandpa's house (my dads)
the big boys all got these cool indoor remote control hellicopters and landen got a spider man helicopter toy too. he totally felt like he was one of the big kids!
as you can tell we had a huge and tiring and exciting and wonderful christmas. every year our families do way too much for us and we are so grateful for everything they do. we try to teach landen the true meaning of christmas but it sure is fun watching his open all his gifts. its cute tho, cause if you ask him about christmas he knows to tell you that we are celebrating Jesus' birthday. :)