Christmas at Home

Before heading to Texas for Christmas with my family we celebrated at home a couple days before.
Brooklyn woke up that morning and came into the living to see what Santa had brought her.  Her reaction was priceless! There were lots of exclamations of "whoa!" and "ho-ho-ho's" in thanks to Santa.  Her big gifts were a teeter-totter and a wood play kitchen.  She gets on the teeter-totter and starts to sing "totter, totter!".

Thomas' parents came over and we exchanged gifts with them and all watched Brooklyn open the rest of her presents.  With each toy she wanted us to open the packaging.  The nice thing about it just being us is that there was no rush so we could open each toy and give her time to play with it before moving on to the next present.  Brooklyn was a pro at opening her own presents.  She had lots of practice the 12 days leading up to Christmas as per tradition she got to open a book each night.  I actually had to keep all the presents up in a closet or in the garage so that she wouldn't open them when I wasn't looking (which happened twice before I got smart).
Some of her favorite gifts included a plush Elmo and Cookie Monster and Sesame Street blanket (she sleeps with them every night), her teeter totter, a fancy prince and princess puppet set, and bubbles.
We had breakfast together with Thomas' parents and then after they left Thomas and I opened our gifts to each other.

The set-up the night before.

Her cash register which has a scanner and microphone.

Trying on her new church shoes.  She walked around in them and her pajamas for about half the day.

Grandma Sandee made her a Sesame Street blanket for her and her dolls.  She now sleeps with "monster" and Elmo every night.

This backpack comes to church with her every Sunday.  She loves that it is a monkey. It also came with a leash but we haven't had to use it yet ;)

I love her look of independence while opening her gift.  She needed very little assistance this year while opening presents.

Her bubbles.  Random fact: Gymboree makes the most long lasting bubbles ever.  Try them.

This is her trying to hide a grin look.

It was awesome to have the calm relaxed Christmas at home and then the crazy fun Christmas with all the cousins at my parents house.