Merry, Merry Christmas! 

We were greeted by a very eager Gwyneth at 4;30 a.m. asking if we could please get up at 5 am to open gifts. We had originally requested to not open gifts before 6 am, but that hour was just so darn painful for her. B sent the girls back to bed and at 6:05 we were greeted again and so it was off to open gifts! (Annabelle fell back to asleep, but Gwyneth just laid there counting down the minutes!)

Santa was here! He left lots of fun goodies in their stockings. 

…And lots of gifts under the tree. He gathers gifts from all over to bring them – from Godparents, Grandparents, Friends and Family. Of course he brings a few special treats from the North Pole too. 

Annabelle is emoji crazy!

Seriously crazy. I don’t get this emoji poop craze…especially the rainbow poop. 

It sure does make her happy though and these reactions make my day. 

Dance outfits, sleep masks, emoji socks, oh my!

The girls have been begging for robes for ages. Santa delivered!

Poppy and Melissa sent new American Girl dolls. The new tally of dolls in this house is slightly embarrassing, but they are the most adored and played with dolls and you can see the girls were quite thrilled. 

Poppy and Melissa also sent each of the girls an Osmo kit to use with their iPads. I didn’t really know much about them and they took a few seconds to get set up and for us to download all the apps. Once the girls were set up, these Osmo games became the true hit of the day. They can create their own art masterpieces, run their own pizza store, and play word games. They absolutely LOVE them! 

I’m not a huge fan of iPads, but these are pretty great gadgets. I think they just got tricked right into learning too.

Playing with my new camera gadgets. The ‘picture clicker’ is an awesome gift and we are definitely getting our use out it. We seem to be doing much better with this than with the auto timer or a selfie. I LOVE, LOVE, LOVE it. And I’m loving all the family pictures we can capture. 

Self portraits:

We packed up and headed to Chicago tonight. Thank goodness for good weather and timely flights and easy travelers. We arrived in Chicago at 11 pm and my mom still came to the hotel to see us. The girls were so excited to see their YaYa and she made their day.