Christmas Part 3 and 4

Better late than never, right?

Christmas Part 3 began when we arrived at my parents' house for our Christmas Day gathering.  We got there early  after our 3+ hour drive so that Sam and Anna could get in a nap at around their usual time before we ate.  Our "early" ended up being about 2 hours late for their nap due to Sam's poor sleep the night before and sleeping in to recover his lost sleep, so we ended up letting them nap until we ate at 5 pm, which worked out okay, because they stayed up wayyyy past their bedtime that night and finally went to bed after 9 pm.  Rarely are they up even as late as 8:30 pm.  The late nap helped them stay in good spirits the entire time.

Running in circles around the upstairs with cousins

With one 4 year old and 3 kids all almost 2 years old, it was a grand time watching them play with each other, giggle, and run in circles (literally) around the upstairs of my parent's home.  My nephew that is less than a month older than Sam and Anna loved our dog Bella and gave her lots of hugs.  The almost 2 year olds had no problem sharing some of their new toys as community property (which is always the case in our home).  And bonus points that my children weren't the crankiest from being the most overtired or the one that got a bloody nose from getting the most wild from running around. :)

Enthralled with the Elmo holiday wrapping paper

Opening presents- my children now know that pirates say "Argh!"

Investigating the plethora of new toys

I wish I had gotten better photos, but it really was chaos in a semi controlled climate.  My family also opens in a free-for-all all at once, which makes it especially difficult to take any good photos of gift opening.

And then back to running around in circles (way past bedtime)

***

Christmas Part 4 and our final Christmas took place on New Years Day with my father-in-law's family.  They came to our house until the day I went back to work.  It was a less than ideal time, because the day before I was cleaning the entire house while taking care of both Sam and Anna and a husband recovering from his wisdom teeth removal (a surgery that the doctor said was probably his most difficult extraction of 2011).  Anyone with toddlers knows that cleaning with toddlers around is like cleaning up during a tornado.  Oh well- it went okay regardless.

Pros at unwrapping gifts

Sharing each other's toys

We opened presents that evening, and Sam and Anna were expert gift unwrappers by that point.  They enjoyed playing with each others gifts.  It's a good thing we got two shopping carts for presents from different people because that will definitely be one toy that it will be nice to have two of.  They also spent over an hour playing with their new playdoh tools and their aunts the next day.

They only stopped because it was lunchtime... almost 2 hours later.

Sam and Anna really enjoyed spending time with their aunts.  They got quite attached to them, and it was nice to see them bond so well considering they hadn't seen them since this summer.  I was a little bit like chopped liver until they left, which was not so nice for me, considering I was also trying to soak up as much Sam and Anna time before I went back to work- and our guests didn't leave until I was already back working.  Again, oh well.

Trains with Aunt Mary and Aunt Lindsay

Post family visits were also got belated gifts of the flu (me only thank goodness) and colds (Daddy, Sam and me).  I think we squeezed in one or two "normal" days before Daddy leaves for his week-long work trip tomorrow.  Oh well again- what exactly is "normal" when you have two twin toddlers, anyway?