MIL took us all out to eat at a fancy restaurant the day after Christmas.
Yeah, our busy kids + a fancy restaurant = parents that don’t get to eat much of the food. Which was a bummer because it’s a nice restaurant with good food. Hubby had to snarf his dessert rather than enjoy it. I didn’t even have a chance to hit the salad bar. I’m still sad about that. Anyway, afterwards we came back and she brought in all her gifts for the kids. I don’t think I got a photo of the good 15+ pounds of various chocolate/candies she also brought for the kids. She did stockings and gifts and all sorts of stuff for them. Sigh. She’s gotten better though, this isn’t near as much as she’s brought in years past.
Babe got a horsey. He’s managed to smack a few people with the pole of the horse already.
Awww.
Ripping open the big boxes.
Oh baby was he excited. The other week when we were in a neighboring town, we stopped by a toy shop that had a Quadrilla set all set up to look at/play with. Just to see how the kids would react. The *loved* it. So the 8yo was beyond thrilled when he saw that’s what he got. 
Complete with hats for everyone. Different hats for each one. They’re big and fuzzy, cover the ears, and have those handy pom-poms for whapping people with.
He had to rip open a package before bedtime. So exciting.
Building/assembling it for the first time. It comes with a booklet/pamphlet of how to build those suckers. 8yo followed the instructions to the letter the first few weeks, now he’s starting to get the hang of the pieces and what they do, and is branching out into his own combinations and own creations. Which was our evil plan. 
And this was MIL’s gift to me (along with a Starbucks card, yeehaw!). It’s really, really pretty. I have just the right spot to put it in (year round, I’m not taking that sucker down), out of kid reach even. Now to actually get it up one of these days…
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