In my defense, we were so preoccupied with enjoying the moment that I didn’t take many pictures. I so wanted to see the look on their faces when they opened each gift and couldn’t wait to see how they reacted to our surprise, that the camera was kind of an afterthought. Add to that the fact that my camera was a trillion years old and there is absolutely no natural light in our living room and the few pictures I did get are blurry and the color is wonky. Even photoshop couldn’t rescue me this time! Just pretend they are beautiful and rest assured that we got the entire morning on video for posterity.
Although we managed to get through the entire morning without a single pajama-clad photograph as a family in front our tree, I did set up the tripod as we were walking out the door for lunch and snag these few of us together. And because I know someone will ask – Ella’s blue skinny jeans are Jordache and were from Wal-Mart. How cute are they? This is one of the few things she asked for for Christmas. Sophie’s are skinny minis from Baby Gap and they are both wearing Classic Uggs in black from Nana & Grandpa. The turtle t-shirts are from Honey Bee Tees and I swear I’ve had those in my stash for more than six months! Josh’s AWESOME red pants are from J. Crew and were a Christmas gift from his parents for football season. I’m wearing shredded denim and a fun lace top from American Eagle that I bought three days before Christmas courtesy of a gift-card from my friend, Ashley.
Ella woke up while I was still cooking breakfast and I blindfolded her and led her into the kitchen to help me. Can you believe she patiently waited thirty more minutes until all the sausage balls and pigs-in-a-blanket were cooked? We woke up SK and SD and got cracking on gifts.
Sophie was pretty thrilled with everything, especially considering it all had a Disney theme and she’s pretty much obsessed.
After the big surprise, the girls opened a box with new monogrammed Mickey ears and an autograph book. Santa surprised them with new headphones in their stockings – Ella’s were Hello Kitty and Sophie’s were Minnie Mouse.
This is one of my favorite pictures, even though it is a sad face. I think this was the one disappointing moment of the morning. I bought them both gorgeous winter puffer coats from Gap last January for pennies and they’ve been in the top of my mom’s closet ever since. SK & I both adore them, Ella, notsomuch.
Eventually all of the gifts were opened and we settled into the living room for breakfast and cartoons before heading out the door for family Christmas. Aren’t their trays cute? Zulily. In March. I’m telling y’all, I’m never Christmas shopping another way as long as my girls are little.
I know what y’all really want to see. I have been giddy about this gift for 18 months. We really wanted to surprise them in some elaborate fashion, but Christmas is so full that I didn’t want to overwhelm them. Their age difference also makes it difficult to do a scavenger hunt and I didn’t just want to tell them with no fanfare. I ended up making really cute gift-certificates for their baby books and wrapped those along with a typed message. Since Ella has just learned to read this year, we thought it would be fun to have her sound it all out on her own.
I’m sure you’ve all seen this little video posted on Facebook Christmas morning, but this was their announcement to the world.
And here is how it all went down while opening gifts on Christmas morning. They seriously bounced off the walls for two straight days and couldn’t wait to get out of the house on Thursday afternoon. Enjoy this little surprise, the Disney recap starts tomorrow!
