Christmas Eve 2011...

Uncle Ryan and Aunt Cari gave Will his beloved "Ham Plane" from Toy Story 3...He was in "Hog Heaven"! ( ;

Uncle Richard gave Charlie a fantastic Paddington Bear, and Charlie loved it!

Aunt Molly brought back tons of Fireman Sam stuff so Will had to be dragged away to open more presents...

Family Photo 2011

Molly and Richard 2011

We had a great Christmas Eve this year.  So many goodies to eat and lots of presents to open! Since this was Charlie's first Christmas I was impressed with how much of it he understood,  but in true kid fashion he caught on pretty quickly to the idea of new toys!  We ate, unwrapped and then headed to church for the candlelight service.  Will hadn't been to church for about a year(since I work on Sundays)  so I reminded him of how the church is God's house and when we go in we need to have quiet voices and be calm and not run or jump around.  I also reminded him that Santa was watching him and tonight was the big night so he needed to be really good.  We went up the steps to the church and he seemed pretty nervous about what this was going to be.  We entered the hall and he sees the lady greeter standing there.  She was a nice, 40-ish African lady.  He walked up to her nicely and said "Merry Christmas God!"  We all busted out laughing and just about died!  He was so sweetly serious, and she thought he was so adorable. Thankfully she took it as a big compliment.  We thought it was kind of nice that he had no pre-concieved notion of what God must look like.  I will never forget that moment!  After that both boys sat very nicely through the service and Will got to hold his first candle.  We returned home after that and finished a little more present opening and then finally hit the sack, after reading "Twas the Night Before Christmas" of course!