What a Great Christmas (outside of the fighting)!

   You will either have to indulge me with my million pictures or not read this post, because there are A LOT of pictures! But, it's Christmas, and it must be documented!!

This is a fun picture of Audra that I liked, so I added it to the bunch:

 Here is the tree after Santa came. We wrote to Santa and asked him not to go overboard with gifts, because we really don't want to focus on the gifts at Christmas. BUT...things are changing as the kids get older. Here's the deal: I have never understood how/why people would go into debt to buy rediculous amounts of gifts for their kids. I mean, how spoiled do kids really need to be? But, I am beginning to understand why parents do this: seeing the kiddos happy faces on Christmas morning is pretty priceless, I must admit.

Nevertheless, we are trying. So we asked Santa to not go too crazy. And he didn't. In fact, most of the presents he recycled from garage sales and we were so glad!

Hopefully you'll notice the bike under the tree- Santa was kind enough to fix Audra's bike for her for Christmas- it was a big hit! She loved it and went out and rode it in our freakishly warm weather.

 Audra got a laptop, but Claire was the one who played with it most:

 Here is Audra in her Pinkalicious dress (her favorite gift- thanks Grandma High! She wouldn't take it off all day!) playing on her sit and spin- which both the girls loved:

Ben doing his fatherly duty: putting together the new toys (in this case a doll stroller- another HUGE hit from Grandma High)

 At Grandma and Grandpa Marriott's having some fun:

 This was my favorite gift: Grandma Marriott and Aunt Beth superimposed Audra into a garden and made a poster out of it- it is awesome!!! (and, Audra came home and dressed up in that outfit, and layed on our green carpet and said "I'm pretending I'm in the garden"- it was very precious!)

 Who is the cutest 18-month-old?

 And the cutest 3-year-old?

 Ben opened this shirt/sweater combo from Grandma and Grandpa Marriott, and as soon as he opened it, I was like "put this on!!!" He looks so dang hot in this- as you can see from this model shot!

 This is for Grandma High- Audra LOVES her Pinkalicious dress!

 This is what they were really doing most of the day: fighting over Claire's stroller and baby doll. Seriously. They would not stop fighting over this. If Santa had known that Audra would want yet another doll in her large doll collection, he would have spent the $1.50 and bought her one as well. 

 I got a gift from Ben that I will have to wait to show you because it has to be installed first- I'll leave you with that clue! I am really excited, but it will be a couple of weeks until it is ready to go probably.

 Ben got a sleeping bag that keeps you warm to -5 degrees. Actually, I got everybody in the family one- for emergency purposes. My parents also got us a "sanitation kit" which includes an emergency potty. They are calling it the "biggest gag gift of the year" but it actually was on my list. Seriously, if there was an emergency situation where you could not use your toilet, wouldn't it be nice to have this? You just never know what might make you still feel like a civilized person!

Before you feel sorry for Ben, however, this is what he got himself exactly one week ago:

Yeah, a 46" LED TV. You don't feel sorry for him for getting a sleepig bag anymore, do you? I don't!

And, because I couldn't figure out how to move this picture back up with all of the other sit and spin pictures, I will end this very long pictoral post of our Christmas with this lovely picture of Claire:

Merry Christmas 2010!!!!