Matty's Christmas Morning Fun

And then there is Matty....

One very, very happy boy! :-)

Juliet's Christmas Morning Reactions

I don't know, Juliet doesn't look terribly impressed with her Christmas morning surprises!  She did LOVE the wrapping paper! :-)

Where is Juliet?

In the midst of all the Christmas fun, Juliet has decided she loves to move--by any means necessary.  She rolls, pivots, and scoots backwards on her belly to get around.  I was setting the dining room table as Juliet was playing in the living room.  When I looked back, she was gone!  Uh, oh--were could she be??

I found her under the tree, happily playing with the presents!  She was having a great time :-)

**Milestone Alert** Juliet is on the move! (Sort of)

Juliet is crawling!  Well, sort-of-crawling!  She is officially on the move now.  If you put her down on the floor, you can be sure that she will not be in the same place for too long.  Her preferred method of movement is a combination of rolling and backwards crawling.  She hasn't quite figure out how to crawl forwards yet, but that doesn't mean she can't get to things.  Unfortunately for her, backwards crawling means she often backs into the corner or under any nearby furniture.  She's also pulling herself up to a standing position.  What will she master first--forward crawling or walking? 

Christmas Morning -- The Reaction shots

We had to wake Matty up at 8am on Christmas morning, so we could open the presents before everyone started arriving for brunch.  Even Juliet woke up before him!  Once he saw what was under the tree, he started to change his mind about that Santa guy....

Christmas Time!

Well, if the 204 photos that I just downloaded are any indication, we have a lot of blogging to get to.  We are still recovering from the hustle and bustle of Christmas and trying to dig out of the mound of wrapping paper and boxes and plastic toy packaging.  We ended up hosting 3 out of the 4 Christmas meals after the cousins contracted Bubonic plague and had to be quarantined for the holidays from all but the bravest and strongest immuned.  Here's hoping they are finally on the mend and fully recovered soon.  It will be fun to do a second round of Christmas with them! :-)

Matty and Juliet had a lot of fun this Christmas and were super excited by what Santa brought for them.  Matty approached the holiday with great trepidation, as he is not a fan of the fat man in the red suit with fluffy white beard.  After we left the cookies and milk on the table and went to sleep, I believe he had nightmares of Santa instead of visions of sugar plums--not a lot of sleep for Mommy and Daddy! 

Look--Santa ate some of the cookies and drank the milk.  Apparently, this did not meet Matty's expectations because all Christmas morning he kept saying "when is Santa coming back to finish the cookies?".  We'll have to tell Santa to do a better job next year. :-)

 Somebody was an especially good boy this year--Santa brought Matty his very own car!  Wow!  Juliet got a dolly and lots of fun toys, too!

Very serious

Quick--put on your serious face!  Great job, Matty and Juliet!

Out Takes

Some more Christmas card out takes.  Matty and Juliet love to be silly and think pratfalls are hilarious!

Sculpture

Matty really wanted to climb on this one particular sculpture.  He is laughing here because his shoe keeps falling off :-)

The Rejects

A huge thanks to Jennifer Adams for taking our Christmas card pictures.  Check out her website-- http://www.jenniferlynnphotos.com/


She was able to capture a ton of amazing pics of Matty and Juliet.  We weren't able to put them all in our card, so here are some of the "rejects" :-)

Timber!

Watch the slowly collapsing sibling hug...

Can't stop Genetics

Matty and Juliet:  Sibling Resemblance?  They definitely have the same expression on their face in these pics.  Pretty funny.  :-)

Matty in October 2009

 Juliet in October 2011

Santa is NOT Welcome

Santa came around on the fire truck this morning to the delight of all the children in our town.  All except for my two children, at least.  Santa was handing out big chocolate bars to all of the kids and Matty flat out refused to get anywhere near him, and he DEFINITELY was not about to take a chocolate bar from him.  You'll notice by the lack of pictures below that Matty was trying to get away, no matter how much coaxing I tried to do.  Then, we have Juliet.  Always a happy baby and willing to go anywhere.  She was not amused.  Apparently Santa is on her list of "Things I Don't Like".  Maybe all the presents Santa brings them this Christmas for being so good this year will change their mind about the man. Fingers crossed.

On the bright side, we have the quintessential 1st Christmas picture of the baby crying in Santa's lap--check that off the list!
 

More ornaments!

Some more pics of the kids decorating the tree.  Not everyone was thrilled to be involved in the activity :-)

Little Juliet Lou Who

 "Hmm.  Guess this is some sort of new snack.  Oh--it must be an apple!"

 "Let me try this out.  Matty seems to love apples."

"This isn't an apple!  What is this???"

O Tannenbaum

Time for decorating the Christmas tree!  I seriously regret not making everyone change out of their pjs prior to this fun photo op.  Oh well--I'll try to remember that for next year! :-)

Sleepover

Matty, Juliet, and Abby playing in their pjs after a fun sleepover!

Everybody look over here!

Abby was giving Juliet some tips on crawling.  Matty couldn't resist joining in.