christmas!

hazel and i came home from the hospital on Christmas eve afternoon...we were almost able to leave on tuesday (the day after she was born) but my platelets were still too low. elijah welcomed me home with his best mess yet...he's just lucky Santa still came!

While orum was at the hospital picking us up, elijah decided to take advantage of his sweet little aunt marion...he moved a chair to the counter, climbed onto the counter, and found a new bottle of vegetable oil on the top shelf. i'm not sure why this looked more fun than the huge bag of chocolate that was sitting beside it!? he then decided to open the oil and pour it all over the kitchen tile, but that wasn't messy enough! he then tracked it through to the hardwood floor through the rest of the house! i wonder if he was just trying to test Santa? it certainly wasn't what i expected to come home to...

Renee on the other hand was VERY sweet! one of the first things on her agenda was write Santa a letter for Hazel. She wanted to be sure that she had something too, but wasn't quite sure what Hazel should get. She decided to just write

Dear Santa,
Please bring our
sweet new baby girl
some fun new baby things.
Love, Renee

Renee had also decided that Santa really liked candy canes...so that's what we left and the random york patty that i found in the Halloween candy. and that was fine with me because we didn't have any cookies!
Look closely at the purple bunny on top of Hazel's things...Santa was able to find the same little bunny with a rattle inside that my mom gave Renee when she was born and that she still sleeps with. I would have thought that Renee would have been so excited...instead she was SO sad! she was the first to wake up and inspect the loot...she came in my room with tears in her eyes...she wanted Hazel's new bunny because it was softer than hers! after she got over the bunny issue she went for her stocking...
who knew a cheap-o princess notepad could be so exciting?!? she was only slightly more excited about her "baby ariel that crawls"
elijah was just pumped that he got a ball and a guitar! he has a thing for soccer balls...everytime we go to the park it seems some older boys are playing with one...and he runs to join in their game. now he can start his own!
Renee got a pink guitar for Christmas when she was two, and he's been obsessed with guitars ever since! the pink one bit the dust sometime last year...let's hope this one will last longer! what's funny is no one in this house even plays the guitar, but from the moment he picked one up he's held it the right way. he spent most of the day asking, "what song should i sing?" we'd name a song and then he'd sing and play away!
more excitement from renee...anything princess=major excitement! this time it was pajamas!
renee was very pleased with the present that she had picked out for elijah and wanted to make sure she could get him excited about it ...
elijah and orum reading about handy manny and his tools! handy manny is currently his tv obsession...elijah's not orum's.more christmas joy...i'm serious renee got excited about every single thing she opened! even blue hair on a headband from "little aunt marion!" orum's little sister spent Christmas with us and it was so fun! this kids LOVED having her here...sorry you didn't make any pictures Marion, but hey, neither did i! i'll do better next year!

since Hazel came so close to Christmas we missed spending Christmas eve with my family as usual, but it was nice to be able to wake up to Christmas morning at our own house! only 2 more Christmases and then we can have it all again!