We wish you a Merry Christmas....

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Wow, it has been a super busy week and a half for us. It is amazing how much harder it is to get things back in order now that we have two kids. You know your kids had a great Christmas when here we are 4 days later and I am still trying to get the house back together and short through gifts. We are very, very blessed!

Briana and Brody both had a wonderful Christmas. With it being Briana's first and she is only 4 months old she did not really have a clue as to what was going on obviously. She did enjoy ripping paper a few times and gazing at any toy that lit up and played music. She got a lot of great presents and it will feel like Christmas to her for a very long time as she will be getting new toys frequently as she grows into them.

Brody seemed to "get it" a little more this year but in true Brody fashion he was not greedy and did not rip through all his gifts, he was content with one and would play with it for awhile and then move on to the next. He enjoyed helping others open their gifts but really just wanted to take the paper off and had no concern in opening the box or seeing what was inside. Brody was very spoiled as well. His biggest gift was from us and it is a Mercedes Benz Power Wheels. On Christmas morning I had it sitting next to the tree filled with gifts inside and he was so excited for the car that he threw all the gifts out so he could climb in. We have been teaching him how to drive it in the basement so he will be all ready when the weather gets nice and we can take it outside. We also got him a "Let's Rock Elmo" which he has loved playing with and it really is such a cute toy. Aunt Kimberly and Uncle Craig got him the instruments that interact with the Elmo so Brody will say "Let's rock out Elmo!" SO cute!!

Christmas Eve we spent the morning getting things ready and then went to Grandpa Mel (Ampa) and Grandma Diane's (Gragra) on Christmas Eve night. Santa had made a special stop and left three little gifts for the kids outside the door. The boys said "wow" and thought that was pretty neat. The kids were very spoiled with very nice gifts. Brody is always very into educational toys and has already spent hours playing with the alphabet apple he received. He also got a key board which is very fun. We are very lucky to have such great family and our kids are truly blessed. Christmas morning we enjoyed opening gifts and stockings at our house. Brody's big gift was his car and Briana got a Fisher Price Laugh and Learn Farm (we had gotten Brody the Laugh and Learn Home for his first Christmas). The kids also got learning toys, clothes and books. Brody is very into art right now so he got coloring books, crayons, chalk and stickers too.

For lunch on Christmas day we went to my Aunt's house and then headed over to Grandma Candy's for Christmas with Daddy's family. We enjoyed snacks and a fun game of The Night Before Christmas which Julia won and got a gift card to Target (it is so funny now that the girls are older because Julia had it figured down to the penny of how she was going to spend that gift card :) The kids were spoiled once again! Brody got a very cool tent with a tunnel (which he has hardly come out of since I put it up) and Briana got a walker and some very cute clothes. Brody also got his first set of pretend dress up clothes which he will have hours of fun wearing. Once again we are so very blessed to have such wonderful family. We have two very lucky kids!!

The past several days have been spent trying to get our house back together. The Christmas stuff is down and now we are just going through toys and putting things together. It really has felt like a tornado ran through here for the past week (which drives us crazy). We are hoping by the end of the weekend to have things back to normal. I always say you spend months preparing for Christmas and then it is over in a blink of an eye (kind of like planning a wedding). I think the most important thing to us this holiday was how lucky we are to have our two healthy kids. They really are the two best gifts we could ever ask for and by far the two best things we have ever received.

On the development front, both our kids continue to be doing great. Brody is saying so many new things and sometimes they come out sounding so funny that it is hard not to laugh! He really is growing up and now that Christmas is over his 3rd birthday will be here before we know it :'( He has started to really get into cars and playing with hot wheel cars. I have gotten him a few from the Cars movies and even though he has never seen the movies he knows who Lightning McQueen is and calls him "Cars Queen" (tell me that is not hilarious). Briana is a rolling queen, she is rolling all over the place, sometimes several times in a row. She is such a talker, always cooing and laughing. She really is a happy baby. She is still waking up several times a night but in her defense she is always happy, even at 3 am. Maybe she will be the opposite of her brother and turn into a great sleeper later on. Brody loves it when she sits in her Bumbo seat, he will hug her and kiss her and bring her his toys. I think he feels like she is a real person when she sits up like that. I tried to put her in the walker yesterday for the first time to give her a new view of things. She liked it for a few minutes but then was over it.

We hope all of our friends and family had a safe a very Merry Christmas!! We love you all and can't wait to see what happens for us in 2012!! Happy New Year!