You sure have so many parties. The boys get way then 3 presents.

omg you guys had a great christmas!! Such cute little guys you have!

Looks like a super fun day! I do have to agree with the anon above though, you say you have a tradition of 3 gifts to represent Jesus' 3 gifts at his birth, but they obviously receive more than 3 gifts.

They unwrap 3 gifts at our family party. I wouldn't lie.

My husband and I are currently on the waiting list for adoption (Day 74). I enjoy reading about your journey to motherhood through adopting these 2 beautiful miracles.

The tradition of 3 gifts with OUR family Christmas is one that me and my husband plan on starting with our child(ren). We found this idea years ago and I loved the concept behind it. Children get so many gifts from everyone that we want our house to focus more on the real meaning behind Christmas. I appreciate that you do this with your family. Yours boys will always remember these traditions :)

Looks like you all had a great Christmas and you're raising two awesome boys! I wish we'd started the 3 gift thing when our oldest was a baby, but how can we go back now?! They don't get a lot though, for the same reasons you mentioned! Happy New Year!

I took it to mean that she gives her children 3 gifts from herself and her husband, no where did she say she limits other people on giving gifts to her children. I also don't remember her saying "the boys only get 3 gifts each for Christmas" she said SHE and her husband give them 3 gifts each. :)

My children get 3-5 gifts each. We only allow them to ask for 5 things each year, and we stress that they may not get everything on their list, but we always ask them "If you can only get ONE thing from your list, what would you want it to be?" My kids recieve well more than 3-5 gifts every year, due to extended family and friends who give gifts. (Especially this year because we spent Christmas in Alabama with family we hadn't seen in 10 years). It's obviously the same with Katie and her family.

Katie, it looks like you had a wonderful Christmas! Merry (belated) Christmas and Happy New Year!

Katie, I love that you guys have so many Xmas celebrations, so fun! And I think the 3 presents to unwrap thig is a great idea....I also don't know why people feel the need to comment on every detail in a negative way. You have a great family, I have loved following your journey :)

Lol @ the anonymous counting of the gifts! Glad you all had a good Christmas with your sweet boys. I think I commented about this before, but my oldest & Sadler are like a day apart in age and I love this age even though it is challenging from time to time (daily). :) God bless you and your family!

*Sadler is 2 days older than Isabel. I went back and looked. Haha

I think about the 3 or 4 gift idea as well. I think it is a great idea. Not sure why Anonymous cares what you give your kids and feel they have the right to be rude to you. If you don't like Katie or how she does things it is easy to click the x in the corner of your screen and leave. So over anonymous people being rude.

I think about the 3 or 4 gift idea as well. I think it is a great idea. Not sure why Anonymous cares what you give your kids and feel they have the right to be rude to you. If you don't like Katie or how she does things it is easy to click the x in the corner of your screen and leave. So over anonymous people being rude.

I tried to type the 4 gift idea I have seen that I am loving. 1. Something to read 2. Something to wear 3. Something pretty and 4. Something to play with. I agree the toys get out of control and I think minimizing the amount you give helps keep that in control. Glad to see you had a great Christmas.

Kate, I think thats great! I know it can be tough to control what family members lavish on the kiddos (guilty aunt here), but I think thats a really cool tradition. Thank you for sharing what you do with the boys to remind them of the real meaning of Christmas :)

We do the three gift thing, too. By the time we get finished with all of our family get togethers, my kids have about a million presents. Ha ha! Then, on Christmas morning, they open 3 gifts at home... 1 from Santa and 2 from mom and dad. I agree with you, Katie- doing this keeps our focus on what Christmas is truly about.

Katie, Good for you to have an awesome 3 gift giving idea. I cut back this year as well as they get sooo much. We each gave up a gift 20.00 per person and sent it our to our compassion childs family as they were affected by the storms. This is something we will do every year and each have an input on where to donate the money. I love that G can tell what the three gifts for jesus were.


Please do not comment if you have nothing nice to say. It is her blog and you do need to be kind.


Tina

I love the 3 gift idea. That's all I bought my boys this year because they get SO much from everyone else. My question is, do you do Santa as well? or only the 3 gifts? Just curious is all. Certainly don't want to start a bloggy war because I love your blog and your sweet family. :-)

Thanks for the sweet, supportive comments! They truly make my day :)
Cristin, we do not do Santa, not for any particular reason, we just don't!

Were the first 2 comments really negative? Maybe they just misunderstood...seeing the boys have received lots of gifts all together. So many people want to knock down any anons that ask questions, and don't write something to praise your post. I guess I just didn't seem them as so negative that people need to rush to your defense.

it's so hard to tell tone in writting, to me it felt more snotty than negative.
I have and always will welcome any questions. These seemed more like statements than questions, in my opionin. Maybe I'm wrong, thats just how it felt to me.
Either way, I wanted to clear things up a little. Like Alycia and others pointed out, I don't conrol what our family members give them for gifts, we just do the 3 gifts at OUR little family party.

I only wrapped 3 gifts, but we still did Santa. That's why I asked. I don't want my boys not to have Santa, but I was very disappointed in their reactions this year. My 4 year old got upset over the size of his boxes, and my 8 year old said he had an OK Christmas, but didn't get everything he wanted. It hurt my heart. I tried to explain to them what Christmas was supposed to mean, but it made me sad. I feel though I can't stop Santa now, because we've already started that tradition, but I certainly am looking at a way to reshape how they view Christmas for next year.

RE: Santa - we told our kids that Santa gifts are based on Santa's price list. We told them that Mom and Dad buy the gifts from Santa, and what they get from Santa depends on what his prices are like that year.

In addition, they only get one Santa gift each. Sometimes the Santa gift is one large gift for them all to share. Everything else is from mom and dad. I was not raised to believe in Santa, but my husband was, so this was our compromise.

Katie, I love reading about your Christmas!!!

We need to try to reign in our toy population as well, so I'm thinking of trying to factor in the "three gifts" thing for next year. One idea I have (since we do Santa in our house) is to have Santa bring three gifts - just like the three Wise Men. And one of Santa's gifts may well be a book, so when they write to Santa I will encourage them just to ask for one or two things!

And then I'm thinking that from my husband and I, maybe we'll just give them one bigger gift instead of various smaller ones. So they would really have four gifts during our little family celebration, but...you get the point :)

Just thought I'd share that for anyone else looking at doing something similar!

(the above comment was from me)