Christmas Day

Friday:  First of all--HAPPY BIRTHDAY, JESUS! I'm so thankful You were born!

I arrived at Dylan and Kelly's this morning at about 11:15. The kiddos were excited to show me the presents they had received. They are SO cute! Erin's favorite was her "spirit fire" reptile from Frozen 2. When it is squeezed, it lights up, makes sounds and actually hobbles along really really cute. Erin is SO delighted with it that every time she squeezes it, she goes off into peels of laughter. 

Look at her happy little face! And look at Brendan's happiness watching Erin's happiness and mine! 

One of the gifts that I brought for Brendan was the second Zelda book. I wrapped it separately and placed it on top of his bigger box of presents. Brendan opened the book and immediately began reading it. He didn't even attempt to open the bigger box! He sat there and read his new book for about 15 minutes (!!) before he could be coaxed onto other things ...

Little Aidan was VERY pleased with his three transformer trucks. Actually, I was very impressed with how they were made--very sturdy and easy to transform--PLUS, when you rev them up, they zoom away! Very cool.

Dylan helped baby Cal open his gifts. THIS picture (below) is very significant to me and here is why: See Callaghan's face? I have an almost identical picture of Dylan when he was this age. I HAVE to find that picture and post them together! I really never saw the resemblence before--although Dylan has said right along that this baby looks like him.

Brendan was finally begged into laying aside his book and opening his bigger box of stuff. Aidan and Erin watched in anticipation ...

Oh! When little Erin opened up her light-up Dinosaur (a pink T-Rex) ... she ran away! "That's too scary, Gwamma!" she said. Aidan opened up his GREEN dinosaur, pressed the "light" button and laid it down. He was entirely UNimpressed. Sigh. 

Shane came over at about 12:30 with perfect gifts (!!) for the kiddos. Erin was very pleased with her "Mama penguin and baby penguin"--look at her happy little face! Aidan received a very cool LEGO set that lets you choose which models to make. After we ate lunch, Shane very kindly assembled the helicopter as well as the airplane for Aidan. I loved watching Shane and Aidan interact. It is apparent that they spend time together and enjoy each other and it warmed my heart very much. Shane got Brendan a very unusual TINY box of cards that I did not at all understand, but which Brendan obviously asked for--I think it might be something to do with Pokemon, but I am not sure. 

This is the "fire" airplane from Aidan's LEGO set ...

The kids received a nice mini-tramp for their basement playroom. Erin demonstrated it for me!

I bought some little doll clothes and some fake food, bottles and other doll things for Erin. Aidan enjoys this kind of play as much as Erin does--so that's good--because they do almost everything together.

Erin eating a Christmas cookie ...

These pictures did not load in order, so I'm struggling a bit with narrating them ...

This is Erin's QP doll. We dressed her in some of the new doll clothes.

Apparently all of the kiddos had matching Christmas jammies ... but Aidan didn't like his and changed into other ones before I arrived. Look how darling little Cal is!

This face! Those blue eyes!

And WHAT did we eat for dinner? 

DELICIOUS and absolutely YUMMY Chinese food! Thank you, Kelly and Dylan! I ate a huge plate-ful of it--I could eat Chinese every single day. ALSO:  I received a very beautiful pair of earrings from Dylan and Kelly. Kelly found them over at her friend's store--Nestology--in Eastown. However, I had so much stuff with me that I forgot and left the earrings in the box near their front door. Pooh. I'll have to get them Tuesday when I pick up the kids.

I went home briefly from about 2:30 to 3:30 to gather dinner stuff together to take over to Jes and Emma. We decided to have a casual Christmas meal and just hang out for awhile together. I had gotten a ham at Meijer--they were practically giving them away--and I brought over a cheesy potato casserole. We still had plenty of Christmas cookies to consume, so we did!

Oh! I forgot to mention that it SNOWED Christmas Eve--YES!! We had a lovely, powdery-white Christmas 2020. I love a white Christmas, don't you?