Heimlich maneuver on Christmas morning?

It all started with the chocolate the kids found in their stockings Christmas morning. I thought it was cute that Baby Lu reached for a Reeses bell right away. (I would regret this later.)

Twinkle Toes stopped digging through her loot long enough to pose for me.

Baby Lu is still feverishly at work on the candy. I'm still thinking "how cute".

Mr. Monk inspecting the goodies in his stocking. I'm not sure why he didn't just take it down like everyone else did.

Success! She got it unwrapped, or so I thought. Then I noticed a little foil in her mouth. Oops.

Group shot in their coordinating Gymboree Christmas jammies. Guess who lost her shirt before Christmas eve? If you guessed Measle, the same one missing her skirt for our Christmas card phots, you were right.

I think it was while taking this second shot that I noticed Lu was having some trouble. Right after this I took her into the kitchen and tried to get her to take her bottle. When that didn't work I did a little Heimlich over the kitchen sink. I also did a finger sweep and came up with a big chunk of chocolate and some foil wrapper.

She was obviously not traumatized for long. A few minutes later she toddled up to me with a package of gum. Needless to say I moved all the candy and gum out of her reach.

She took it pretty well. After all, she did get a new purse with lots of cool stuff in it to take out and carry around. You see the chocolate incident left its mark on her new jammies, though.

Below are a few shots of the kids opening presents. I was very proud of myself this year. I stood over them with a camera instead of a trash bag. Surely that's progress, isn't it?