Ellis had already seen his stocking when Rob took him back to bed at some stage in the night. I heard him take a breath and say "look, Santa's been!" Wish I could have seen his face but that was good enough.
The boys came into our bed eventually, bringing their stockings with them. I had taken pictures of what I put in them but I seem to have lost them for some reason. They had each, a CD, toothbrush, book, little toy, colouring book, pencil set, milk buttons, chocolate coins, chocolate Santa, Ellis had a magazine and Leo had a puzzle, selection box, Ellis had Mickey Mouse toy and Mickey Mouse cup, and I think that's it.
We opened the presents with them and then tried to capture a family photo like we seem to do every year.
I drew the short straw though and had to press the button, run and jump into bed while carrying Leo and being 29 weeks pregnant with a sore pelvis. It took a few attempts but I think we managed to get a half decent one.
It didn't take long and we were soon heading downstairs. Rob went first to put the lights on the tree and to set up the camera to capture their reactions. It wasn't what we were expecting. Ellis just stood there for a few seconds then just started running up and down the living room, laughing saying he was being blown away! Very strange. He eventually calmed down and wanted to open a present but couldn't find one with his name on in 2 seconds so sulked off to Daddy. I gave him a gift which he opened and said "look what Santa brought me!".
I haven't sorted out the camcorder videos yet and they are too huge to put on here anyway so will have to make do with pictures.
Leo started off not being interested in the presents and instead grabbed his favourite thing, the singing mouse.
We then commenced opening presents and it was a really nice relaxed affair. Leo was really good at doing it but got a bit bored and Ellis was great. He would wait patiently while a present was opened and packaging removed, he would play with it for a bit before moving on to something else. It was great as it meant I could do a gift with Leo in between.
Leo loved his dinosaur.
This was their under the tree presents from "Santa".
Ellis
This is the 2 piles of all of their stuff put together which I thought was a lot but not excessive. I didn't think about the 2 sets of Grandparents, the 3 Uncles, 1 Auntie and a few friends gifts too. It ended up being a ton of stuff!
Leo went down for his nap and I got dressed along with Ellis and cleared up and set the table. Rob did another excellent job of making sure the food was in and out of the oven at the right time so that we could have a yummy dinner. The starters of melon didn't go down well with the boys but I loved mine.
The boys were dressed in their Sunday best which I love doing as they don't wear smart things very often.
Lunch was chaotic to say the least. Ellis was just a huge pain and didn't want to eat anything, so we struggled to get him to try some stuff at least but it was then that I decided I wasn't going to bother any more. I had been having troubles with him recently being a pain over eating and it was starting to get to me but Christmas dinner was the last straw. From then on I wouldn't pressure him in to eating anything, I wouldn't rush him or tell him to race Leo, I wouldn't ask him what he wanted either and would just dish up food for him that I thought he would like. I'll let you know how that goes.
Leo was pretty much the same. He tried stuff but most of it ended up on the floor and dessert was just as bad.
We chilled out for a while after cleaning up. Just opening more presents, playing and relaxing. It was really nice and it surprised me that I was enjoying the peace of it all.
Then all hell broke loose. Rob's parents and brother arrived, and we opened tons of gifts with them, shortly followed by my parents with yet more gifts to open. I think it was a bit too much all in one go so might change that bit next year, as in leave more presents at the Grandparents houses' for opening the next day or something.
Ellis finally received his scooter that he had been asking Santa for. I think he felt a bit shy again as he had a similar reaction to the scooter as he did for the Christmas tree.
Once everything was opened we had a good play with all the new stuff.
The adults had some lovely buffet food, lots of it, then we all sat down for a game of Trivial Pursuit. It was my parents and I, versus Rob and his family. Rob's family won but we did really well and seemed to answer a lot more questions.
We had a brief game of Charades which was hilarious and then Rob's parents and brother left. My Mum and Dad stayed behind for another hour or so and we had a quiet game of cards. I really enjoyed winding down the evening like that. I was totally shattered as they pulled away in -10, icy conditions though.
We went straight to bed and said we would leave the cleaning up for the next day. We hadn't done too bad a job anyway.
What a busy but lovely day. I really really enjoyed myself and I'm pretty sure everyone else did too. I loved that we stayed at home but would be happy to move around more when the boys are older but we will see. Have to see what they think too.
