Christmas Trip Part 2: Christmas Day

Since the grandkids were rarely all awake at the same time we only waited to open presents until all but one were awake. My parents had the Santa presents hidden by blankets so those who got up earliest could feed their kids and not worry about ruining the surprise. Here's Zach hanging out with the covered Christmas presents and looking pretty out of it.

Usually we open presents going from youngest to oldest. This year we sorted the presents into family piles and had a free for all since we were working with so many people with really short attention spans. Zach did a great job opening presents and Caleb was happy to chew on anything he could get to his mouth. Both our families were incredibly generous and our boys made out like bandits. We had to buy extra storage drawers to hold all the toys once we got home.

A couple of days before Christmas we got a call from my brother Garrett who's serving a mission for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in the Charlotte, NC. We found out that instead of the typical Christmas day phone call we were going to get to Skype with him instead! It was so good to see him and we loved showing him the niece and nephews who've either changed a ton since he left or hadn't been born yet. It's crazy to think that Garrett will be home a couple of weeks before next Christmas.

The one downside to Christmas was that both my boys got stomach bugs and were feeling pretty miserable by the afternoon. Sadly they were very sharing and most everyone in the family got the bug at some point during the trip.

Zach took a bubble bath in Grandma and Grandpa's big tub with Melissa's little boy. The boys had a blast and were so fun to watch. We also had fun playing with our new camera which takes pictures so much better than our last one. I love how you can see the water droplets in the first picture.

This is typical Zachary after a bath. He has to bring all the animals out of the bath and do this crouching waddle while wearing the towel. We call it "his penguin walk" and it works a lot better with his big hooded towel at home.