Jaggar's Christmas

Jaggar started waking up right as Sage was unwrapping Go Go, which couldn't have been any more perfect. It was his turn to see what Santa brought him. I actually went upstairs to get him, but he wanted Daddy as soon as he saw him. So we switched kid/camera, and I snapped the pictures. I was so pleasantly surprised with Jaggar's reactions. He was genuinely excited, and I think that shows in the pictures despite the fact that he was under the weather.

On the way in....

Aww, look at that smile!
STRAIGHT to Go Go, of course. :)
Those magnets were his favorite. We couldn't get him to put them down to open presents.
But with that smile, who cares?
Checking out the train table....and getting ready to take the track apart. I've reassembled it many times. Shocking, I know.
Sing-a-ma-jig. These things are really funny if you haven't seen them. Sage got a pink one, and they harmonize with each other.
And he's done. :)
Back to the magnets.
This picture is so funny to me. Okay, for MONTHS, when we were out and Jaggar saw pillow pets, he would shriek and point to them. He'd throw himself on them if he was walking. So he finally gets one on Christmas morning, and that's his reaction. And THAT reaction was after we forced him to look at it. It was like he'd never seen it before. It was NO magnet. Kids are so awesome, aren't they?
Water blocks, which I feel sure will be used as a weapon in the near future.
Love that face. That's when he realized that he had a drum.
Annnd back to the train table. :) He kept trying to put his gifts on it. He's taking one of his new crochet mallets/hammer to it here.
Beating the drum.
He got a dog too. His dog talks, walks, lights up and sings.


Look at that sweet face. You can really see how much fun that he had.
We had a few gifts for the kids from us, and I was surprised at how much Jaggar liked this "snow" book. He backed up and sat right in my lap for me to read it to him. As someone who used to read for hours on end (novels in a day), I'm so thrilled that Jaggar is finally letting me read to him.


Then he remembered his cars from Christmas Eve.
This boy scored well too. Both of my kids were good this year. :)
And the aftermath....I started getting a little overwhelmed by this later, but who cares? It was their day to play, and they had a LOT to play with.

Christmas Morning with Sage

I'm behind on posting Christmas pictures, but it turns out that after feeling crummy all week that I have come down with the flu and an ear infection. It is GROSS too. I'm not in excruciating pain like I was last night thanks to a shot of rocephin, so I thought I'd attempt to start playing catch up with the blog. Even with all the sickness we've suffered in this house, God allowed Christmas day to be picture perfect. It was just beautiful, relaxing...and just nice. We had all of our family here the day before, so we didn't have to be anywhere, which turned out perfectly for more reasons that I'll show later.

Travis told Sage the night before to call him when she woke up. I was so excited FOR her that I was up a little before 6. By 6:30, Travis and I were drifting in and out of sleep when I heard, "Daddy. Daddy." She was awake! I ran to get her. Ha, I was really that excited for her. Then I said, "Come in our room. So, what's up? What are you awake for? Santa? Was he supposed to come last night? I never heard anything. I'm not sure he came here." After torturing her for a few more minutes like that, we made our way downstairs to see if he HAD come. Jaggar was still asleep, but his turn would come later. I'll let the pictures tell the rest of the story.

She's about to make her way around the corner. The ONLY thing she specifically asked for was "Go Go, My Walking Pup," and she was sure that it had to be in there. (I was hoping Santa would take Mayer or Chanel, but no such luck.)And he DID come! Sage asked for "surprises," and I think Santa came through!
The cake and milk were gone. Where Cara was lying was a present to Sage from her. :)
I think Sage was completely overwhelmed. She has been pretty much every year on Christmas morning. It's like too much to process for her. I tell Santa to downsize, but that hasn't happened yet. So out of piles of presents and a brand new train table, she zones in on a pillow pet.
I guess that I can't blame her. It WAS a RUDOLPH pillow pet, which was made for her. She's slept on it every night since then.
There's no way that I could post a picture of every present that she unwrapped, so I just hit the high points. She was thrilled with this hot pink zhu zhu pet that she had wanted for months.
This smile is over a strawberry shortcake remote controlled car. It is pretty fun.

Looking for Go Go in the midst of everything, but no such luck yet. She was thrilled with the BLUE lalaloopsy doll. She saw a picture of her back in the summer and wanted her.
Finally! (She sleeps with her every night now too.)
Then she went for this....Can you guess what it was?
Watch and see.


Finally! She says that Go Go is her favorite gift, and I guess she would be. She's very cute. I think Go Go is the only dog that we need in this house.
She forgot about the gift from Cara that was laying on the table by the empty plate and milk cup.
It's a pocket elf, a magic elf without the magic, to remind Sage of Cara until she visits again. Sage was not so sure about this. Why doesn't she do stuff? haha. She warmed up to the idea more as the day went on....kind of.
This was from us to Sage. We thought that we couldn't go wrong with that. We were correct.

She got Barbies, and believe it or not, that's the first Barbie that she's owned. She really enjoys them too.
Trying out Go Go.
Sage in the midst of all of her loot. She must have been a pretty good girl to get so much stuff. This was one happy girl. The next day, we watched a bit of church online and Luke was the only one singing. She said, "Is anyone else there?" I said, "No." She said, "Well, I'm glad I'm not there because I have too many new toys to play with.

Jesus' Birthday Cake

Since Christmas is Jesus' birthday, Sage and I (Jaggar will participate one day) always bake a birthday cake for Him and leave a piece for Santa. For 2-3 years running, she has consistently chosen a pink cake with pink icing. I let her choose and that's what she goes for. Fine with me. We usually make it on Christmas Eve morning, but this year, that was pushed to the evening after all of our company left. It was a hectic Christmas Eve. As I said, Jaggar was pretty sick so our plans were kind of pushed around, but it still worked out. Here's some pictures and video of "the night before Christmas."

StirringAnd tasting


An explanation of that noise you heard in the background. This was his gift from my in-laws. Has there ever been a more perfect toy for this boy? Probably not.


And she's still tasting. :)

And the finished product. She was not in the mood for pictures. A Christmas Story had started on TBS, and she was very into that like our entire family is. We love that movie. Also, culinary me got brownie cream cheese icing to write so writing "Jesus" was very difficult. Have I mentioned how much I hate doing anything with food? Sage still hasn't mastered "sprinkling" the sprinkles, but I think that makes it all the more perfect.
Again, "sprinkling" the reindeer feed. You have to love this.
Then she gave Cara and Rudolph hugs goodbye because they would be going back to the North Pole. We had a very fun visit with that little elf this year. Sage was pretty sad for her to leave.
And everything was put into place for Mr. C. Both kids were off to bed. We gave Sage the usual speech of not calling us if it looked like it was still nighttime outside. :) She was so tired that she went right to sleep.