It's CHRISTMAS!!!!

This Christmas was a memorable one. Morgan was really into it this year and was counting down the days. She had made one of those traditional counting red and green link chains at preschool and brought it home to immediately hang on our tree. Every morning the first thing she wanted to do when she got up was go to the tree and pull a ring off. She was so excited that for the last month about every five minutes or so she would tell us "Santa coming, any minute. Santa coming soon."

As usual we spent our Christmas Eve down at Donna and Charley's enjoying some great food, classic Christmas movies, and time with each other.

Morgan enjoyed checking out Grandma's tree. She discovered that she could hang a candy cane from her nose. We couldn't capture it on camera, but here she is setting it up. Too funny!

Since I was a little girl it has been tradition to open pajamas on Christmas Eve. My mom still keeps this tradition up for her grandkids sending them each a new pair to open that night. This year Morgan got a Fancy Nancy nightgown. She was SO excited when she opened it and saw it had her favorite fancy girl on them.

By the time we left Donna and Charley's that night Morgan was exhausted. She didn't even make it to the end of their street before crashing out. When we got home we did Morgan's usual nightly stretches and then put her down for the night. Since she didn't have time to leave her cookies and milk out for Santa I set them out for her. He left her a very nice little note, but I forgot to get a picture of it.

Morgan woke up Christmas morning around 6:15. David and I went in together to get her up, pulled off her braces, and set her in her wheelchair. While we were doing all that she heard something barking from the living room. You should have seen her face. She lit up and shouted "a puppy!" Of course, it was not a real puppy, but thankfully Morgan was not disappointed. She drove out to living room and discovered her big girl bed and doggie that Santa had brought her.

Morgan was so excited about her doggie. She immediately wanted to take her doggie for a walk and to love on her. Morgan quickly decided on the name "snowball" for her doggie.

While Morgan played with her new doggie we quickly put on a pot of coffee and then settled down to open stockings and gifts as a family.
Morgan's favorite stocking stuffer was the slinky Santa brought for her.

This year not only was Morgan really into getting gifts, but she also gave some too. She made us an ornament at preschool and wrapped it there. She brought it home on her last day before break and we set it under the tree. She then told me, "Mommy, shhh it's a surprise." She kept her gift a secret the whole time. She also got gifts for her family (we went to the dollar store together and I let her pick out whatever she wanted). Morgan did a great job finding the perfect gift for each person. For her Daddy she chose a new pair of earphones. She knows him so well, he is constantly misplacing his earphones.

Morgan received many new games from us like Yahtzee Jr., Chutes and Ladders, and a preschool computer game. One of her favorite things to do is get on our computer and play Starfall. She loves to play the games on there, but usually needs our help because of the right click on the mouse. Well, we found her a great kid-friendly one click mouse and this keyboard. She loves her new computer set up (I have a picture of it at the end).

Morgan went on a ride in her new bed to bring it into her room. She couldn't wait to see how it would look.

After we had the chance to celebrate Christmas morning just the three of us we were joined by Donna, Charley, Brad, and of course Sophie for a Christmas breakfast and more gifts. Morgan was completely spoiled as usual; especially by her Uncle Brad.

Can you guess what this is?

Morgan LOVED her new pony. In fact she hasn't left the house without it in the past week. She baths it (pretend), combs it's mane, and takes it to the vet for check-ups.

When I said Morgan got everyone in the family a gift, I did mean everyone.
In fact the thing that started the whole idea of her buying gifts for everyone was that she first insisted on getting Sophie a gift. Not just any gift, a tug toy. Morgan and I were out Christmas shopping one Sunday afternoon for her grandparents when all of a sudden in the car ride to the mall she says,
"Mommy, Sophie gift too"
"Oh, okay, what should we get Sophie?" I ask
To which Morgan replies, "Tug toy. How about a pink one."
"A pink tug toy, I bet Sophie would like that. I am not sure if we can find a pink one though."
"How bout red one. Like Santa's suit."
It went on like this for a while and the whole time we were shopping she kept reminding me that we needed to go find Sophie a tug toy. So this sparked my idea of taking her to the dollar store and letting her get gifts for everyone. So when we left the mall I filled in her with my idea and immediately the kid was excited and starting thinking of ideas for people. Here is what she ended up finding:

Sophie: A beige stuffed bone with a tug rope on the end.
Daddy: earphones
Uncle Brad: A book
Grandpa: a tie
Grandma: a flower pot and flower seeds
Aunt Carol: a necklace
Uncle Dave: a Santa hat that said naughty on one side and nice on the other

After opening gifts it was time to really open them all up and play with them. Morgan's first choice was to set-up the "zoo" her Uncle Brad got her.

Playing zoo with Uncle Brad.

Here is Morgan's big girl bed set up in her bedroom. It looks pretty good in there and matches with everything so we don't have to repaint or do new curtains. Thank goodness! I know it doesn't look finished since really it is just a mattress and bed frame, but we really don't have room the full headboard, footboard thing. Morgan needs room to be able to get in her room with her wheelchair, walker, etc... so this will have to do.

After spending the morning at our house playing with all Morgan's cool new stuff we cleaned ourselves up and headed down to Donna and Charley's for Christmas dinner and more gifts.

A rare family photo. Can you tell we are all concentrating on Morgan's standing rather than smiling for the camera?

David's big new gift this year was a Droid X. My intent was to surprise him with it on Christmas, but Verizon had other plans when they mailed the phone activated and all of a sudden Wednesday morning I go to make a call to find out that my cell phone is no longer working. Thankfully about 30 minutes later the new phones arrived on our doorstep, but my surprise was about to be ruined. If David went to make a call he would instantly discover that his phone is not working and would be on to me, so I had to make a quick decision, I threw Morgan in the car and raced to his work for "lunch." When we got there we surprised him with his phone. So, he got his gift a few days early. Anyway, Morgan loves his new "toy" and is constantly wanting to play with it. She calls it his "ipad" since that is what she relates it to with the touchscreen. Her speech teacher at school has one that Morgan uses, this kid knows more about technology at 3 1/2 than I do.

The gift opening this time was more for the adults, but Morgan still had a few things to open.

In fact, after a while Grandma decided not to have Morgan finish. She saved a few gifts for later in the week when Morgan went over to their house again.

In all we had a fabulous Christmas. We were so thankful to get to spend it with our family and to continue to build such wonderful memories with them.

Here is Morgan a few days later "working" with her Daddy. David set her desk up right next to his so while he was working from home this week she was "working" with him.