I had some "help" in the kitchen before the big day, decorating cookies to take to neighbors and friends. This was a fun afternoon, but I'm sure I still have sprinkles on my kitchen floor, even after mopping! They seemed determined to pile as much on each cookie as they could possible shake from the shakers. I thought they'd never dry...but eventually they did. And they tasted great!On Christmas Eve, John's mom cooked us an amazing feast. But before we could dig into the food, we dove in to some presents.
The boys were very patient, waiting for all the gifts to be stacked up for each person and then waiting and watching each other open packages. These costumes were the hit of the evening.
It snowed all day on Christmas Eve, piling up about six or seven inches here in Iowa City. During dinner, the boys had to take an intermission to run to Grandma's piano room window to watch the snowplows clearing the street and driveways. After that, they proceeded to eat about six desserts each, but what the heck...Christmas only comes once a year!We had to hurry home to bed so Santa wouldn't miss us. This was our first year expecting Santa overnight, as in the past he's come while we were at 8 a.m. Mass on Christmas morning. Due to a schedule change, we couldn't go to Mass until 10 a.m., so presents came first. (Note: I'd much prefer to attend Christmas Eve Mass, but since I can barely get the boys through a regular one-hour service, there's just no way we'd make it through the extra pageantry plus the need to arrive at least 45 minutes early to get a seat!) The boys didn't get up until about 6:45, which we considered an acceptable time. You can see that Daniel was still a little bleary eyed.
They tore into the packages and were thrilled...
...until they weren't. The picture below is just before Edward wailed, "But I didn't WANT Lego!"
He was eagerly anticipating the semi trucks that carry the Cars vehicles (Lightning McQueen, et. al.) I had been coaching both boys to ask for Lego because they love building with it at school and at the Children's Museum, but didn't have any of the "big kid" kind at home, due to the tiny pieces. Daniel fell right in line and was thrilled with his Lego box. Edward, however, did not appreciate Santa's attempt at manipulation, giving one semi each to the boys so that they'd have to play together. Tears ensued--both Edward's and mine, my heart broken to see him disappointed on Christmas morning.
Thankfully it didn't last long, and in a beautiful Christmas moment, it was actually Daniel who saved the day. He came across the room to the chair where I was holding a sobbing Edward and held out his red Mac truck saying, "Here Edward, you can play with it." What a great kid! Shortly after, they were both playing happily, and Edward had to admit that the new Lego allowed for the construction of much better garages and ramps for the cars.In the meantime, I attempted to make a pan of monkey bread for a breakfast treat, but ended up setting off the smoke detector when the sugar boiled over and burned on the bottom of the oven. To stop the smoke I took it out five minutes early, so of course it wasn't cooked all the way through. We attempted to eat the outer edges, but it just wasn't working, so we waited for the oven to cool a bit, used the grill spatula to scrape as much as we could from the bottom, and tried again. We got it cooked through, but not without more smoke. And I still had a birthday cake and pizza dinner (birthday boy request) to cook later in the day!
