Christmas Day- Christmas at Grandmother's House

After a fun morning with the Gerbils, we all cleaned up and went to Great Grandmother's house for the afternoon/evening to spend time with the family.

Here are the kids ready to open presents:


KT in book heaven with the Wimpy Kid Diaries, which she FLEW through the first two and is working on the third one now- reading them by the end of January and LOVED them. :)



More games to play!


MD opening her baby doll from Great Grandmother:


KT and AC in the floor putting together the toy airplane that AC got:


Uncle M & Aunt N reading the autographed book of KT's published story in the Moving Earth book:


Uncle M with his travel blanket:


Grandpa with some Whoppers:


AC working on his plane:


MD in her dark blue velour dress sitting at Grandma and helping her pick which of her presents to open:


Miss Rei, chillin' on the floor:

Christmas Morning- Gerbils revealed and naming!

On Christmas Eve, Hubby drove and picked up the gerbils from Cassie and brought them home. To be able to hide them for the afternoon, we put them in one of the two cages and locked them into the half bath so they would be safe from Miss Rei and safe from discovery by the kids until we gave them to the kids on Christmas morning.

This year, KT knows the true identity of Santa, as she directly asked me if Hubby and I were Santa. I told her yes, and she was fine with it, as she'd been struggling with it- going back and forth since she was hearing things from other kids, but was seeing the clues that pointed to Hubby and I. She quickly put two and two together and asked if we were also the tooth fairy and the Easter bunny, but she's been very good about keeping the spirit of Santa alive and playing along for AC and MD.

Santa did come an left his mark - The tree with presents:


Santa ate his cookies and drank his coke zero to keep him awake all night as he flew about the world delivering presents:


Christmas morning was somewhat surprising, as the kids didn't get us up as we'd expected them to do. They let us sleep in and we woke up about 8:30 and then there was all the excitement of presents to be opened. We set up the kids folding chairs to sit in for them to open their presents.

The kids in their jammies, waiting patiently in their folding chairs:


Miss Rei on her bed and happily chewing the new sterilized bone she got for Christmas:


The kids get their stockings full of goodies (movies, waterproof gloves, books, and bath stuff) from Santa:



The precious look of shock on AC's face as he got a blue soap cupcake:


Hubby handing out gifts:


MD with some new beginning reader books:


Daddy opening his presents:


I opened the present from AC:


And a cute card from my girls:


And then last but not least, my big present from Hubby and the kids- a Build A Bear dog- named Little Rei (they wanted to get a black lab, but had discontinued them, so they got the only other black dog that was in the store with several pups, calling them Mini-Rei's)





Then came time for the Gerbil reveal- We had wrapped the second cage and all of the accessories into three boxes of the same size for the kids to open. As they were opening them and pulling stuff out, hubby went and got the cage with the gerbils and brought them into the room, behind the kids and placed them in front of them. The reaction by both the kids and Rei.

The kids each with their box and opening:


Here is a video of the kids getting their boxes open and Hubby hiding in the kitchen doorway, then bringing them out and setting them in front of the kids:


A really happy camper! KT grinning from ear to ear and looking at the camera with the gerbils in the cage in front of her:


Hubby gets the white one out and Rei's interest is now peaked and she's gotta check them out- Rei sitting next to Meaghan, both looking at the gerbils and Rei with her nose to the cage:


Miss Rei checking out the critters moving around in the cage:


So after the reveal, we set their cages up on the white cabinet and cubby cabinet and began to link the two cages together. We then began to talk about names for them. Since we had a white one and a light grey one and a dark grey/nearly black one, the kids decided to call them snowball, lighty and darky. Mike and I didn't think anything of this at first, totally eluding the two of us. It actually wasn't until later that evening when at great grandmother's house, when the kids announced the names of their pets to other family members that it dawned on Mike how the name sounded. He quickly turned to me and said, we gotta change the names of the gerbils. I gave him quite a confused look, and when he explained to me what he meant, it all came so clear and in full agreement, we proposed to the kids to change their names on the way home to Snowball, Midnight, and Twilight instead.

AC put up a bit of resistance as Darky/Midnight was his gerbil and he had came up with the name for her. However after a few days of calling them the new names, they have stuck and all is good now in our household. :) Phew!