A Groovy Christmas

Christmas morning started at a decent time for us - 7:45am. Lance and I are enjoying these types of hours while our kids are still young. (We know we'll probably be up much earlier in the years to come!)

Spencer rushed into my room, whispering at the top of his little voice.

Spencer: Mommy! Mommy! Santa Claus came and he brought me toys!
Me: What did he bring you?
Spencer: A train! He brought a train! And a toy. A red toy!
Me: What is the red toy?
Spencer: I don't know.
Me: Maybe it's for Joshie. Don't you think Santa brought something for Joshie?
Spencer: Oh, yes... but no.

As you know, Spencer did get a train. And the red toy was a Spiderman Sit-n-Spin for Josh. (Which Spencer was more than happy to demonstrate for Josh.)

Lance got a bunch of computer stuff, of course. And of course one of our hard drives died this morning. (Literally - you could actually hear it's death throes.) And of course a hard drive was not one his gifts. So now we have to buy a new one. Of course.

I also got him a fun (I think) necktie. It's a 'Power Tie'. Get it? It has the little power button symbol on it? I thought it was perfect for my perfect computer geek. I think it's clever; not a normal pattern on a tie, but doesn't have cartoons across the front, either. (I like more subtle ties.)

Joshie got some cute toys. My favorite was the bucket of cars my parents gave him.

But of course his favorite were the maracas Santa got at the Dollar Spot at Target!

Spencer also got a really cool stocking stuffer: these fun straws that you can put together. (A bit more than Santa usually spends on Stocking stuffers, but since the train was free he felt he could splurge!) Spencer LUVS them, and I am sure my counters will be constantly wet for the next month or so. (But now I have a surefire way to get him to drink his milk!)

I got lots of neat gifts. I am especially impressed that Lance got a platter that I wanted from KitchenArt. (All I had to do was send him an email telling him what I wanted, attached a photo of it, and made sure that he had the address of the store. :) ((He also got me a really cute apron from Etsy.com, and I love it. But not enough to go take a picture of it right now. Maybe tomorrow.)) Spencer gave me a new whisk, which I desperately needed. And Josh? Well, Lance claims that Josh desperately wanted to get me one of these:

Yes, that is a lava lamp. Groovy. Or something. Every year Lance gets me some random, off-the-wall gift, and this was it. Only now he's blaming our baby for it. (Shame shame!) Oh well, I will take a picture of it once I find its permanent home. (Any ideas? Let me know! I'm thinking it might become a new Halloween decoration!) ((BTW, last year I got a chocolate fountain. Unfortunately, it didn't work, so I returned it and got a new toaster oven. That I love. The lava lamp works.))

But the big Christmas gift this year came from Lance's Mom and Dad: a Wii!

I think Lance was more excited about it than Spencer, since he had known about it for two months! We've already had several melt-downs and tantrums over it, so you know Spencer is in lurrve. But that's a good thing, because I am already establishing the fact that playing with the Wii is a privilege, not a right. I think Spencer is already catching on; the tantrums ended more quickly than normal!

And I will admit - the Wii is fun. Lance and I played for an hour tonight. I totally kicked his trash at baseball. (Aren't you proud of me, Dad?) We won't talk about bowling...

So all in all, a very merry Christmas at the Madsen home!