Cuteness

Matthew and Meredith play together in the pop-up tent. They posed like this on their own with no prompting on my part-way too cute for words!

Matthew has as much fun with Meredith's toys as his own, the silly Bean

Christmas Day-Part 2

Christmas day was filled with fun and games. It's nice to just spend time with everyone and relax. Matt standing in the big pile of mess...he was also grumpy because he had to work, which would cause me to be grumpy too

Matthew showing off his neat light up shoes (Thanks Aunt Brittney). He stomped around the house like a big elephant in the shoes

We had some heated games of Hungry Hungry Hippos ;)

Aunt Brittney even joined in for the action

Matthew figured out quickly how to make his Buzz robot do lots of cool things

Chillin' with Papa

Nana did an awesome job painting an impossibly cute stool for Matthew, thanks Nana!

More playtime

Meredith's dinner time with a bow

Matthew and Meredith wrestling. Seriously though, Matthew will lay on the floor and Merebear will try to crawl over him-so much fun to watch

Yummy Christmas dinner

Papa and Matthew then put on their aprons (Matthew's request) and painted some nice pictures

After all of that hard work playing, Matthew relaxed with a vibrating seat pad

As usual, Meredith seemed to have more fun with Matthew's toys

It was a fun day, but boy were we pooped at the end of it!

Christmas Day-Part 1

Christmas day was very memorable. We all had a great time and enjoyed the kids. We spent the day at Nana and Papa's house. When we arrived Papa had a delicious breakfast cooking and he even acted as a short-order cook and made custom omelets for everyone-Thanks Papa!

Meredith was too precious in her Christmas outfit. I think she looked like a little baby doll :)

Yummy breakfast

Brother and Sister

The Girls

Meredith was content with a piece of tissue paper while Matthew tore into the gifts

Nana was glad to help Matthew open presents

Aykut helped Matthew open his special gift....

....a big talking, interacting, programmable Buzz Lightyear robot. Matthew LOVES it-and love is an understatement!

Waiting patiently for Papa to get Buzz out. They really make kid's toys impossible to take out of the packaging. I broke so many nails this year opening toys!

Two worn out tippas :)

Still more pictures to come.....

Merebear playing with tissue paper-loads more fun than any toy!

A Sample of Happy Unwrapping

Christmas Morning

Christmas morning was a blast. Matthew is at such a fun age for Santa and all of the cute traditions. It's priceless to see the amazement in his eyes as he realizes Santa came to his house. Meredith just went with the flow of things, as usual. She woke up before her brother and waited patiently for him.

He wasn't quite awake when he started on his stocking...he had his tired/grumpy get-the-camera-out-of-here look on his face. That mood quickly faded.

"Hmmmm....what's this? Is this for me?"

Opening the stockings

Matthew was delighted that Santa put some Hex bugs in the tree. He had fun searching for them

Getting started....

Meredith took her time and would examine each gift

She was actually more into the bows and wrapping paper than the gifts. She kept crawling to the trash pile to play with the paper.

She crawled around with a tiny piece of wrapping paper like it was the jewel of the Nile

Matthew would tell me not to look while he opened his gifts and then would proudly show me what he got with great enthusiasm

Daddy and daughter on her first Christmas :)

Happy Bean

"Yay! More wrapping paper!"

Matt had fun figuring out the toys with Matthew

After we got dressed and somewhat attempted to clean up after the tornado that came through our living room, it was off to Papa and Nana's house.......