Christmas Day

With the sick kid, we made the decision to not go down to Mankato on Christmas Day for the big family get-together. Grace wouldn't have been up for the trip and we really didn't want to share her germs with her little cousins. Well Grandma and Grandpa K. didn't want to miss out, so they made a quick last minute trip to our place on Christmas Eve to deliver their gifts.

The girls sprinkled the lawn with their magic reindeer food (oats and glitter) and left cookies and milk for Santa before bed. Claire was up bright and early, but we made her wait until Grace was up to open gifts. While we were waiting for Grace, Claire spent 10 minutes sitting in our bed wondering whether Santa came because she didn't hear anything all night. So we told her she could go peek down the stairs to see if he came. A couple minutes later she came running back into our room sooo excited! She told us about how the milk and cookies were gone and the stockings were full and there were presents! She could barely talk and she was bouncing up and down. Such excitement! Unfortunately when Grace woke, she wasn't as excited. She threw the biggest fit ever simply about not wanting to put her pajamas back on after she went potty. We managed to get her dressed through the screaming and kicking. At that moment, she didn't care about Santa or presents. She just wanted to be grumpy. Meanwhile, Claire was ever so patiently waiting on the top step for us. After we finally got downstairs and Grace saw the presents, thankfully her mood changed.

Tearing into Santa gifts.

After Santa gifts, we opened family gifts. Here is the aftermath of all the gift opening.

We were pretty much walking on eggshells all day hoping not to set off either of the girls. (While Claire had no outward symptoms of being sick, you could tell by her emotionally fragile state the previous few days, that she wasn't 100% yet either.) Grace was still feeling miserable and any little thing set her off, screaming or crying. But after her afternoon nap, she woke up giggling. She finally turned the corner on the way to feeling better. The rest of the day she was in a much better mood. The new toys and endless candy might have played a part in it too.

Grace's favorite toy was a racing playset (a very last minute gift idea!)

And Claire's favorite was a set of Bizu beads. She loves these things. Perfect future gifts too. The Doodle Bear that we went all over looking for, hardly even got looked at! Oh well. We did buy one for each of them and at least Grace seems to likes hers.



And here is our annual birthday cake, decorated of course by Claire!

We were supposed to fly out to South Dakota on Monday, but that didn't happen. Even now Grace seems to be doing so much better, I still think it's best for us to stay home. I don't want to wear her out with traveling. And neither of them sleep as well away from home. As much as we all want to go, getting fully recovered is most important. So we'll have another Christmas to look forward to later on.