We actually heard Nate get up and go to the bathroom - but he didn't come to get us. I wasn't sure what he was doing, and I thought maybe we had been hearing things. Then Nile started to cry. Tom got up to check on him and I followed behind. Then I see Nate's head poke out of his doorway. After telling him it was okay to come out - he came to me, gave me a big hug, and the first words out of his mouth were: "Merry Christmas, Mommy!" Not "What did Santa bring?" or "Can we open presents?" - I about melted!
It turned out Nile was hungry. When Nile is hungry, watch out! He becomes a cranky whiny kid-monster. Really. He didn't want to have anything to do with presents.
So, while Nate checked out the huge talking Optimus Prime Transformer that he found under the tree, Tom and Nile cooked breakfast.
Then we ate a nice peaceful breakfast, which was great - I love it when we can take our time on Christmas morning and really enjoy it. After breakfast we opened presents. I could share a hundred pictures of the boys opening all their gifts, but I just picked a few highlights.
The boys got Fatheads for their walls. If you don't know what a Fathead is, it's basically a life-size (or larger) sticker that you can put on the wall. They are removable and movable - Nate got Batman and Nile got some huge sports balls (baskeball, soccer ball, etc).
Nile got a Leapfrog game.
Nate got two new Mr. Men books - Mr. Christmas and Mr. Snow - and had to read them right away.
The gift that has gotten the most use by Nile so far is his $2 Play-Doh stocking stuffer.
After our morning Christmas at home, we headed up to the northern Chicago suburbs for Christmas with Tom's side of the family. We stayed overnight in a hotel, which the boys loved, opened more presents (another Transformer for Nate!) and drove home in a blizzard the day after Christmas. We had a great time, the boys were on their best behavior, and it made this Christmas a really wonderful one.
