Christmas Day 2010

Merry Christmas from the Armstrongs!

So fun to be waking up with 2 kiddos this year :) 

Especially when one of those kiddos has a wild holiday faux hawk!

 Daddy and Carter

 Mommy and Ava

 Merry 1st Christmas Carter!

Don't look so worried buddy, this will be fun :) 

 Getting ready for the marathon morning...

 It took Ava all of 2 seconds to immediately get into her presents!  Definitely into the unwrapping process this year, she opened every present in sight with very little help.

 90% of my pictures of Ava this year, are of her eyelids.  

She was much too busy to look up and smile :) 

 And 90% of my pictures of Carter, are just like this one :) 

He did lots of chill-laxin all morning!

 My Mom and her baby, Oliver

 The annual debut of Christmas morning Monkey Bread!

 Carter hit the monogrammed jackpot this year!  He got all of my favorite monogrammed gifts from Ava's first year...a beach towel, a pottery barn blanket, and a duffel bag :) Love to see his name on everything!

 Our kids and their adoring public!

  Christmas morning with my love and a hot cup of coffee.

Perfect way to start the day!

 Pagey playing with my new bottle of hand soap.  

An appropriate thing to play with of course, ha ha!

 Carter hanging with his fun uncles.  

I'm sure this will be a recurring theme as he grows up!

 Taking a water break in between presents, with her new princess cup :) 

 Back to the grind...

 I win the award for the WORST present of the year!  I bought her this learning/musical lawnmower thing because it was so cute and played lots of cute songs.  I thought I tested it well in the store, to make sure it wasn't annoying, but boy did I get it wrong!  It's so incredibly loud and we all hate it.  Which naturally means that Ava LOVES it :) Here's hoping we "forget" this toy on our way home!!

 Snuggling with sweet Carter.  

I can only imagine how busy he'll be next year!  2 little cuties ripping into one present after another!

 Grampy and Grammy with their Christmas Grandbabies

 Our traditional "Christmas morning in our jammies" picture!  

Right out of bed, gotta love it :) 

 Ava opening her presents from Aunt Stacie and Uncle Jesse...

 And Carter sleeping through his :) 

Ava was happy to help and open them for him!

 That little cabinet was one of our favorite things when we were little girls.  My parents brought it out for Ava and she has loved playing with it all week!  Especially since she got so many kitchen themed gifts this year :) 

 Carter, apparently happy with his gift haul when we he finally woke up!

 Ava, all dressed up for dinner with our family.

 I love getting the house all ready for Christmas!  

I always get put in charge of the tables and I love that :) 

 Love all those details!

 Opening more presents with Aunt Jennie...

 A new baby to love :) 

 Stacie and Jesse

 Jennie and Dave

 Love having a new baby at Christmas time!  

Makes everything new and sweet to see it through a little set of brand new eyes.

 Ava's new favorite activity is to help my Mom feed the dog!  She loves it, but mostly because she likes dumping the food all over the floor :) 

 Yep, more presents.

Food for her cupboards!

Christmas was such a fun day, in a totally new way this year.  Giving gifts to our kids made us just as excited as they were (well, Ava anyway!)  I can't imagine how much we'll continue to love that as their excitement grows from year to year.  Of course, gifts aren't the focus of our Christmas though.  Taking time to celebrate the birth of Jesus and to be with family, means more to us than any gift could.  We missed the rest of family who are scattered all over the country, but were happy to know that everyone was celebrating somewhere :) It's been nice to slow down and relax this week and we are soaking up all the time we have left to enjoy the remaining days of 2010.  

Merry Christmas from our little family to yours!