Piper came down not ten minutes after I hit "post". Chloe was down about half an hour after that, and Phoebe joined them within about five more minutes.

They're happily playing with their stocking toys now, I'm sucking on a cup of coffee, and we're waiting for Phil, and daylight.

It's five AM. I've been up for an hour. I can't even blame the kids... they're snoozing away. Santa came already. But I had the breakfast stollen rising in the fridge that was bugging me, and I needed to get in the oven. I really wanted the tree lights on for the kids when the woke. *I* was excited for Christmas, because we're hosting my parents this year, instead of running back and forth between our house and theirs (their house is currently under construction).

Phoebe has reached the point that I remember as a child - so excited you can't sleep. So excited you're literally bouncing up and down inside. Piper is excited too, but was already so tired, nothing could keep her from sleep. Chloe is at the age where, with the help of two older sisters, she GETS it, and has been talking about Santa coming for days! This is the "place" where Christmas with kids totally rocks.

We watched this great online program all day, NORAD tracks Santa. You track him all over the globe. Santa sightings are reported by Navy officers, complete with 3D CG images - showing major sites in each of the locations as Santa flies around it (i.e. the pyramids in Egypt, the Eiffel Tower in Paris). Piper was really into it this year, because so many of her preschool classmates travelled internationally this year. So when Santa was in India she'd yell "Santa just hit Arthi!", or over Germany "Santa just hit Yannick!". Phoebe got in on this action as well. We downloaded GoogleEarth for this event - as they had terrain images to go alongside the wider map on the website. It was way wicked fun, helped really build the excited, and, shhhhh, don't tell the kids, but it's educational too!!!