Christmas Day

Our traditional shots without Ben...

And then our traditional forcing of Ben to be in the pictures :)

A pretty normal Christmas morning...

except that it was Josh's last with us for 24 months and...

I was excited anticipating Matt's furry surprise :)!

Abby surprised and excited about her gift  of  Twilight Zone DVD from Gpa and Gma Olsen.

I know Andy was excited about receiving cleaning supplies two years in a row from me :)

Abby's Christmas wish was the Audubon Bird's of America book...

...she was thrilled!

I'm not sure Josh was as thrilled about all his mission stuff he kept opening...but what do you do when you get set apart the day after Christmas???

Andy found special pillows for Abby and Matt...

Uncle Fatty for Abby...

...and an axolotl for Matt.

Andy kind of presented Matt's pillow as a substitution for a real axolotl (because he had jokingly suggested that for a live pet) so Matt was coming to grips with the fact that he wasn't getting a pet.

In the mean time I had Abby run upstairs and grab the bunny and act like nothing was going on.

Matt just kept talking and looking at his pillow...really looking anywhere but at Abby...and so Andy finally had to say something to get him to look over at Abby.

Here is the moment he saw what was in her arms...

Haha...he was pretty excited!

After going through a few different names for him, Matt finally landed on Thaddeus.

I had him add "Sir" and then a few weeks later, Andy added Thumpkin as a last name :)

"Sir Thaddeus Thumpkin"

Later that day we went over to Mom and Dads.

Some finished their paintings while other played games and such.

It was a fine holiday!