Christmas at Home and Maile's Birthday

We had ordered Santa's gift for the kids while we were in DC. We knew they would be unwrapped sitting on our front porch in Amazon boxes. I figured even if we got home late the kids were going to want to see if Santa had come while we were gone and left them presents. So I gave Hansel the dimensions of the products, and he bought gift bags while we were in DC. I put the bags in my backpack. We were then going to let the kids watch TV in the car while I raced inside the house, unpacked the boxes, and put the items in the gift bags.

Well, the items in their packaging were too big for the gift bags. So, I taped the boxes back up and just labeled them to the kids from Santa. When we brought the kids into the house, I pointed out the gifts under the tree from Santa and said they would get to open them in the morning.

Before the kids woke in the morning, we also had to wrap the rest of our gifts to them. So the next day was our family Christmas. The kids didn't seem to think it was weird that their gifts from Santa were in shipping boxes. I think I said something about them being too big to wrap. From Santa, Beck got a take-n-play Thomas toy since he had the trains that go with them but no track. Yes, Thomas trains come in three different models that fit three different tracks. Total racket. Maile got an old fashioned-looking Snow Cone machine that Tabitha has. And Mathis, got a pillow pet since Maile and Beck got ones and he didn't.

That day was also Maile's actual birthday. We had talked to her a month before about having her big birthday celebration on her half birthday (instead of around her birthday) and she was okay with it. So for her actual birthday Maile wanted to go to the Jungle, the same place we went for her actual birthday the year before.

Afterward we took her to ToysRUs to pick out a couple of birthday toys courtesy of GrandMama. We budgeted $40-50 for these gifts. We talked about her picking out a Littlest Pet Shop center to go with the LPS pets she got for Christmas from her cousins. She immediately gravitated to this LPS Rescue Center. I pointed out that if she picked that one it would be the only thing she could get, but that if she got a cheaper center she'd have enough money to get another toy. I was a little surprised when she said she'd get the cheaper center. It ended up being a good thing deal-wise because ToysRUs was having a buy 2-get-1-free sale on various toys, including LPS. And on top of that, if you spent over $25 on one LPS item, you got a set of triplet pets for free. So Maile ended up with 4 different LPS toys for around $50. LPS overload but what a deal!

I didn't realize until the next morning that Maile didn't get any birthday candles on her birthday, so the next morning I made her some birthday pancakes.