Too many presents... and the music box!

Yes I know it is February, almost March and yes I am going to post about Christmas! This will have way more detail than anyone really could care to know or remeber but me but thats the whole point for me so here it goes and for everyone else you can just enjoy the pictures and move on!

 This year I was pretty proud of myself because I got all the shopping done early, some of it back in September (those blasted consignment sales, great deals but I always buy WAY too much! ). I used the excuse of Christmas to buy way more than the girls really needed mind you it was all good deals but still too much! Phil and I also did all the wrapping a week in advance so we didn't even need to stay up till one in the moring wraping presents. 

For some un-known reason Phil and I both started tossing and turning at about 5am, we kept waiting for Madsion to wake up and we didn't want to miss her going into the living room so we both were awake from 5am just waiting. Finally at about 7 I got up and started to make some hot chocolate just for something to do, I even poked my head in the girls room to see if they were awake! So after weeks of Madison waking up at 6:30am on the dot she slept in Christmas morning until 8:00! Ahh! It was total torture for Phil and I we even ended up exchanging gifts before they woke up!

So I said that I bought way too much and I knew this when we started the wrapping but I really knew it once we started opening the presents. We always start with the stockings and to tell you the truth we prorbably could have stopped there for the year and Madison would have been a happy camper.

It always amazes me what I think she is going to like and be excited about and then the things she really is excited about. For example I thought the barbie computer would be a hit but alas the $1 Santa chocolate was the thing she talked about most on Christmas morning. But hey what kid is not going to get excited about candy before Breakfast?

The very first time I heard someone ask Madison what she wanted for Christmas this year she said " A ballerina Music Box!" Typically when your kids get their mind set on something or come up with random ideas you can usually tie it back to a show or book they have seen or read recently. This one however totally took me by surprise and I still to this day can not figure out where she got the idea of a ballerina music box. She was pretty set on it too, every time from that moment on if you asked her what she wanted for Christmas it was the same thing. She even gave me a color and everything!

So Phil and I set out to find a music box together, not as easy as you would think! The toy stores were no help and neither were the gift shops, eventually we found one at Claires the jewelery store white with a pink ballerina and everything! $20 is a lot more than I have spent on any one item so far for her but being as it was the ONLY thing she had asked for we figured it would be worth it!

We wanted the music box to be special so we thought we would save it till last... Maybe that was our first mistake. She was so bored of opening presents we had to keep reminding her there were more just to get through them all. We let Samantha open some of Madison's too just to speed up the process a bit!

Right as we were getting to the end we asked Madison what she had asked Santa for, for Christmas. Fun side note we wrote a letter to Santa and sent it in the mail to my parents, Madison wrote it and drew on it a bit and I just figured it was as good a place as any to send it, and then she even got to put it in the mail box. Well as a nice little surprise for her she received a letter back from "Santa" thanking her for the letter and telling her that if she was a very good girl she would get what she had asked for! It was very fun and she was super excited to have received a letter from Santa, so thank you Nana for that fun little piece of mail!

Anyway so we asked her what she had wanted and she looked up from her current package with a big frown and said " a music box"  It was easy to tell she still had her heart set on it. We then had her search the tree to see if there were anymore un-opened presents and she found the box behind the tree she got super happy and ran to present opening spot that she had thus designated by carrying each gift to the same place on the couch to open it! She was excited about the music box and thought it was really cool that it played music, go figure!

The rest of the day was spent playing with and setting up the x-box kinect. That was another fun gift that was completely unexpected by Phil but was also probably the best reaction of all the gifts opened that morning. He looked like a ten year old boy on Christmas morning, once he realized what it was, with how excited he got!

It was a very fun day. We missed being with our families but it was also nice to get to enjoy our kids for a whole day to ourselves.
Two lessons learned this year. Don't stay up until 12:00 playing rock-band on Christmas eve and especially don't let your kids stay up that late! And lesson number two next year they get one gift from Santa one gift from Mom and Dad and one from each other and THAT'S IT! :)