Christmas Day

shelby's Christmas list consisted of the following:

-shark balloon

-shark necklace

-dragon kite

-pillow pet

so we were all looking forward to her reaction to the item at the top of her list....we had the camera ready, she was jumping down the stairs, so excited, and then she turned the corner...and started hysterically crying! she was so scared! we tried everything to try to coax her downstairs. every bribe we could think of.

ultimately i did this, carried her crying into the room and showed her the overflowing stocking waiting for her. it worked.

baby's first Christmas stocking! yeah! sippy cups, toys, snacks, fun!

eventually, shelby mellowed, and remembered that she really had wanted this shark balloon, and suddenly it was fun!

finding a slinky in her stocking helped too.

santa worked very hard on stockings this year, and everyone seemed to really like them! he even remembered daddy's favorite candies.

even santa knows how great target is for this kind of stuff, like juggling balls!

shelby was an excellent big sister and made sure to go through each item of cora's stocking for her.

they are good at sharing.

all right. let's get this party started!

daddy was master of ceremonies and handed out the presents to us. he made sure to keep the pace slow so that we could each enjoy our gifts and and enjoy watching each other open them too.

guess who wasn't very excited about the slow pace? this girl with the super sad face.

cora, i hate to tell you, but a few days before Christmas i realized that i had only gotten you one thing! so i made another trip to target because even though you have so many toys, you still deserve some new ones that weren't originally shelby's!

grandpa curtis got shelby some awesome how to train your dragon toys which he had to search for since they aren't sold in stores anymore. shelby was super excited.

cora's walking toy was a big hit even while in the box!

what could it be??? a rainbow unicorn pillow pet! oh yeah! every day she wanted a different kind of pillow pet, so finally i just picked one and she loves it.

checking out their new calendar. yay! 

we were very dreamworks heavy this year, with kung fu panda 2 and how to train your dragon.

here's the beautiful picture that shelby taped onto grandma kathi's gift- fuzzy, warm ugg slippers. 

so happy!

and so tired. what a mommy face.

reindeers sure love carrots! cora kept trying to eat these. 

and these too.

it was fun having Christmas on a sunday, especially since it was only one hour! even though cora is oh so mad here, she was such a perfect angel at church and slept through the entire thing.

yes, i know i was wearing a Christmas sweater, but why not?

shelby's a pretty good photographer!

i sure love my girls.

we spent the rest of the day hanging out in our jammies and playing with our new toys.

like the hex bugs! what a hit! grandpa curtis is the master of toy buying!

we all loved them. axel and cora included. 

look at that face, pure joy and excitement. 

come over and play with them anytime!

trevor made a fancy filet tenderloin, which we had with spinach salad and green bean casserole on the fancy china! it's a once a year occasion and i'm nervous the whole time.

it was truly a very merry Christmas. i love our new tradition of hosting it at our house and we love having the thompsons with us to celebrate!