Christmas Morning 2009

Christmas this year was WONDERFUL! Josh, Eli, and I shared so many happy memories this morning. I can't wait to have many more Christmases with them! God has richly blessed our family and we are so very thankful!

Santa didn't forget Eli!
Truthfully, Santa only brought the 3 presents on the right (beanbag, and the two boxes). Mommy and Daddy got all the rest. Yeah, went a little crazy, but he was SUCH A GOOD BOY this year!

Going straight to the balls from his Daddy :)
Like father, like son!

We let Eli go at his own pace Christmas morning and let him open presents whenever he wanted to. I gave him the short version of the significance behind the 3 gifts (next year, it'll be a little longer since he'll be able to sit still a little longer), then let him open whichever gifts he wanted.

After Eli decided to take a break from all the presents and relax in his beanbag and munch on some Crunchies, Josh and I took our turns opening gifts from each other. Josh got his favorite movie of all time, Dumb and Dumber. I have no idea why we don't own this movie since it is his favorite, but now we do!


We also bought my brother's old XBOX 360, so now Josh gets to play Guitar Hero whenever he wants to. He's such a rocker!


Then it was my turn. We agreed that we were only going to do stockings for each other since we had just spent money on new floors, Eli's birthday, and some other things, but Josh really surprised me! He gave 3 gifts and I opened the smallest one first. I was happy to see it was my box of Queen Anne's cordial cherries. I've gotten a box of these every Christmas as far back as I can remember, so it's kind of an expected gift for me. Josh hates them, but this morning he asked me to go ahead and open the box so he could see if he liked them yet. Not suspecting anything, completely gullible, I opened the box, saw an envelope in there that said Ticket Master on it, thought it was just advertising, put it to the side, gave Josh a cherry, and closed the box. Silly me! He had to tell me to check in the envelope for my surprise and what to my wondering eyes did I see? Two tickets to the PHANTOM OF THE OPERA for the hubs and me!


Quick background history: Josh and I have had the opportunity to attend the traveling Phantom of the Opera several times now, but each time I've told him that I didn't want to go because I wanted to see it in New York. Not that the traveling ones are bad or anything, I just wanted the entire Phantom experience and in my mind that means NEW YORK! Well, Josh being the smooth one he is, said that a friend of ours helped him out and got him some good seats to the traveling Phantom show that is coming to New Orleans soon. I wasn't disappointed at all and didn't think anything about that, even though I knew he knew what I had always wanted. On to the next present, I opened it and well, Josh caught my look just perfectly...

This is the, "No, you did not!" look.

Yeah, my sweet hubby wrapped a New York travel guide book, brochures, and copies of our airline tickets to NEW YORK in the next box. I was STOKED! That's when Josh broke the news to me that the Phantom tickets weren't for New Orleans, but for New York instead. WOO HOO!

As if it couldn't get any better, I opened my last box and saw more tickets! This time to WICKED!!! I've heard so many rave reviews about this broadway show and it's probably the one I wanted to see the most after Phantom. Now I get to see them both in March! What a WONDERFUL Christmas present! Something I will never ever forget!


What a wonderful, wonderful Christmas! What sweet memories! I am sad to see the holidays go, but I feel so blessed that I have these two boys in my life. Besides Jesus, they're the greatest gifts I've ever been given!

Eli with all his loot :)