Christmas Day 2012

December 25, 2012 –

Merry Christmas!!!

Santa was here!!!! Santa really does come all the way to China!!! Who knew???

Thanks to jet lag the girls weren't awake at some God awful hour of the morning. Actually, we grown ups were awake l-o-o-o-o-ng before they were up. Really???? Really!!!!

After a very looooong and drawn breakfast (hee hee hee…aren't we mean parents????) the girls FINALLY got to open their gifts!!!!

We got to do FaceTime with some family members in the USA.

Do you remember the little sack Advent calendar I made this year? Each little sack contained new "Christmas ornaments" (they were mostly random items I found in some of the Chinese markets that really have nothing to do with Christmas). Every day the girls would open the next sack and hang the ornaments on this sweet little (fake) tree I bought at IKEA:

Getting pretty full with all those ornaments!

Living room Christmas decor- numbered Advent candles are from Ikea.

They finished breakfast and now it's time to OPEN THE GIFTS!!! Yaaaaaay!!! There were gifts from Santa and Mommy and Daddy.

Checking out the wrapped gifts.

Looks like Santa brought something Annika wanted:

Annika LOVES LEGO Friends right now. Thanks Santa!

Cuddling with their new large stuffed toys. Ava has a lab puppy (she called it Mocha) and Annika got two seals- a momma and baby (she called the mommy Hiccup).

Annika made some lovely gifts for us out of air-dry white clay:

A very small nativity scene. So sweet!

Playing with their gifts!

After the gifts were opened the girls got straight to work building the LEGO Friends kits they received. Busy! Busy! Busy!!!!

We've got friends coming over in a few hours to join us for Christmas dinner (the turkey is already in the oven!).

By the way, since we're in China this is actually a working day for Mark. Fortunately, he was able to work from home otherwise he would have either had to take vacation time (which we have none left) or gone in to work. I'm glad he was able to work from home!!!!