It's Christmas!!!

    Christmas came and it was great! Of course I'm writing this on New Year's Day, so it seems like a distant memory now, but I'll do my best to recollect. 

  Santa came and brought good gifts for everyone. 

At first Cooper walked past the tree and when I asked if Santa came, he said "Not yet." Then I told him to turn around and when he did he saw the gifts.

Cooper was excited about his dump truck. 

I finally got Cooper away from his dump truck long enough to look at his stocking and he hurried through the goodies to get back to the equipment. This is him dumping the stocking to avoid the slow process of taking each item out.

I think Ace liked his gift too, although he's had to battle Cooper for playtime. 

     Then it was on to Mere Mere and Popsey's. We all went in our PJs (except Dalt) and opened gifts with the family. It was a little bit crazy with paper and "Thank You" flying all around, but very fun. 

Dalton got a new belt buckle with the Pitcock brand on it…very nice. 

Even though the night before we couldn't keep Coop from tearing into gifts, Christmas morning he seemed a little overwhelmed and just watched and then wandered off. After a couple of minutes we heard water running and found Cooper 'washing dishes' in the kitchen. Ace just crawled around looking for paper to chew. 

Of course we had to get a picture of the boys in their matching Christmas PJs. 

The best part is we didn't even know that we had bought the same ones!

Ace was really checking out his new bouncing ball toy.

 Cooper couldn't wait for the guest to arrive. He had to sample the food ahead of time. 

Something must have been really interesting down there. 

 Aunt Rita and Cooper were getting cozy.

     It was a special Christmas because it was a white Christmas! It was really cold, so we didn't get out much, but we stayed out long enough for Cooper to play and to get a few pictures.

Daddy and Cooper racing to the fence.

 After playing in the snow it was time for a snack. 

 "Mommy, are you sure I can't use your new camera?"

Cooper started playing a game on my phone late in the afternoon and fell asleep. I could see the phone dropping lower and lower until no fingers were playing. 

 Ace decided to take a nap too. 

 What a peaceful 30 minutes on Christmas day…much needed for us all. 

 We finally loaded up and got ready to head home. We hated to leave because it was such fun, but it was time to get the tired boys home. Cooper loaded up with all of his toys in his lap, along with his milk of course. 

The boys slept all the way home and we figured we'd just put Cooper straight to bed, but as soon as I got him in the house his head popped up and he was ready to play with his new toys. That lasted about 30 min and then it really was time to bid Christmas farewell. 

The next morning I woke up feeling so depressed. Mom says it's because I really love Christmas. I agree, and with all of the anticipation and fun with the kids it just seemed like it went by so fast! The good news is that it will come around again in about a year. Yeah!!

"For to us a child is born, to us a son is given, and the government will be on his shoulders.  And he will be called Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace." Isaiah 9:6