Kyleigh's Story - Christmas 2008, Part I

My husband had to go back to the base this morning to turn-over the duty at about 5 AM. He came home around 7 AM and had a couple hours of catch-up sleep.

Everyone was awake and ready for gift-opening at about 10 AM. I took Kyleigh downstairs first to see the gift boxes that I put out under the Christmas tree last night. My husband told a short Christmas story in English, and my mom told a similar story in Chinese.

We started out with the stockings. We had previously shown Kyleigh the empty stockings by squeezing on them (and nothing was inside). This time, when Kyleigh squeezed the stockings, we heard crackling sound (from the plastic wrappers). Kyleigh didn't quite know what to do, so we guided her to pull stuff out. The goodies were baked crackers and some chocolates, and a magnet with a crabby on it.

Next, Kyleigh helped Grandma discover the goodies in her stocking. By now Kyleigh was a little bit more adventurous and reached inside the stocking.

After Mommy and Daddy both got our goodies from the stockings, we continued with the gifts. Daddy distributed the gifts to Kyleigh and Grandma. We had to put some gifts away because Daddy's family couldn't be here with us today (due to car trouble). Kyleigh had already opened her stocking goodies and started munching.

Mommy asked Kyleigh which box she wanted to open first, but Kyleigh couldn't decide. So we picked a red box. Kyleigh was very gentle and didn't rip off the wrapping paper like we anticipated.

Ah, it's a learning cell phone. Kyleigh was always playing with Mommy's and Daddy's phones. Now she got one of her own. (But I am sure she will still be playing with our phones because a toy phone can't carry on a conversation.) Kyleigh loved it and immediately started playing with it.

But this was far from the end of the gifts. Next, Kyleigh opened a package to reveal a Disney's Princess doll stroller. She immediately invited her good friend Little Bee to sit in it, and strolled all over the house.