Christmas Day

The girls waited until a respectable almost-7:00 a.m. to wake up, and woke the whole household up to go see what Santa had brought. Nana showed the girls how the cookies and reindeer chow were gone!

Then it was straight to the living room to see what had been left. Christina and Steve had stayed up tracking Santa with Norad, so we know that he arrived in Arizona at 11:36 last night.

He left fun stockings and a play cash register for each girl...they had lots of fun, since this is the first year they understood what was going on with stockings/presents.

A little impatience set in as they wiggled their little arms around their stockings trying to find all the things they saw their sister pulling out of the other stocking, so eventually the stockings just got dumped out on the floor.

The registers were a big hit - they are similar to the ones their friend Charlie has, so Santa probably knew that they would like them.

They got these fun bears from their Oma El - they can practice snapping, zippering, buttoning, tying, and more!

New love.

Santa left one big toy outside - and the girls spotted it very early on! So even in the cooler weather at 8am, they ran out to play basketball (like Sarah Ena and Shaunte).

A little worn out from all the fun, Elena rested on Mom while Nana Rose and G-Daddy made us breakfast.

And as soon as Clara saw that, she needed a turn, too.

The evil eye - Steve was being very silly on the other end of the lens.

After naps today the girls awoke to all of Steve's extended family, who had come over for a Christmas party. Clara called them "The flamily." Nanny brought the girls two keyboards that hook into the tv with a tutorial to teach them how to play piano!

And their Aunt Rose gave them candycanes - always a hit.

Clara, out in the sunshine, pretending to be shy:

And then swinging together again, with their cousin Rachel pushing them. Oh, how they loved Rachel!

That swinging quickly turned silly!

And was followed up by riding on their new stick ponies.

And finally, here the girls are with cousin Rachel. They were SO showing off for her!

We hope you each had a very merry Christmas, wherever you were!