To Nana, Papas, Grandma and Grandpa with Love

As promised, a complete pictoral play by play of Christmas morning. Hope it's as fun for you to watch as it was for us to be a part of! We had SUCH fun. All day we watched Christmas movies (How the Grinch Stole Christmas and a Muppet Christmas Carol among my favorites) and read Christmas books. We snuggled and lounged and dressed in pretty greens and reds. Here's Natalie showing off her Christmas Eve attire. We made homemade pizza and ate dinner by candlelight. The girls thought that was pretty great.

We read the Christmas story and acted it out with our Little People Nativity. We baked 7 layer cookies for Santa (because that's what Santa wanted to eat!) We opened our first present of Christmas on Christmas Eve which was a brand new pair of pajamas for everyone. We sang our favorite Chrismas carols and got all ready for bed in our new pjs. Then we let the little ones join us in a little watching of Home Alone and we even let them stay up past bed time.

And then...CHRISTMAS MORNING! Natalie woke up first so we got to play with her for a bit before Elizabeth decided to roll out. Yep. That's right. On Christmas morning, my two year old decided to sleep in for maybe the second time ever in her life. EVER! She didn't get up until 8:30! Lazy bones!

Here's Elizabeth with her Christmas treats already all over her face!


And of course our smiley girl just beaming in her Christmas jammies too...


Elizabeth couldn't contain herself. She was so excited she just had to hug someone. Good thing Natalie is such a good sport.


She was kind enough to pause and let us get a picture of the two of them in front of some of their Christmas loot.

She couldn't wait long though. Look at the anticipation on this face!


Elizabeth loved the presents that were too big or awkwardly shaped to wrap once they had been put together. So much so, however, that she refused to open the ones that were wrapped. She got finished opening her stocking and then she didn't want to open any more presents. This was perhaps her most distracting gift in her stocking. :)


We had to beg her to open a crucial few more and then she just left the rest under the tree.




Natalie angelically slept through the first round of present opening.


She woke up after Elizabeth had lost interest and Natalie then opened (read: tried to eat) her presents. It looks like she approved though, given that she gummed them each in turn. She's no respecter of presents.





We played with toys, ate cinnamon rolls and drank yummy cider and generally just revelled in having Dad home with us. Christmas comes right at the end of his busy season so this is certainly the most we've seen him since the end of September.

Eventually we got dressed


and headed over to Mark and Carrie's for dinner. Carrie made the most delectable dishes (no offense, Dale. I'm told the rolls were great but one just can't compete with bavarian.) The kids at their table, the grown ups at their table



and the squishy one sleeping sweetly under the tree. What a great present she is! Have I mentioned that I love this baby? Squishy, good natured and adorable. L.O.V.E.


Just as a side note, here are a few other memories from the Christmas season this year.
Mark and Carrie tipped us off to the cutest little outdoor Santa's village. We met them there one evening. It was freezing but as you can see, the cousins didn't care.

The lights were beautiful and Adam even got out of work early enough to be able to meet us there for which we were thrilled.

Mrs. Claus gave the girlies cookies and they were so cute eating them. And that was after the girls got to ride reindeer (or saddles on bales of hay, but let's not get hung up on details)

And natalie and I met Frosty the Snowman. He's kinda cute, right?


I was trying to take pictures of the girls in their dresses they wore to church the Sunday before Christmas. (Please take note of the traditional sunday mess in the background that is borne of a mad scramble to get to church on time with the appropriate amount of toys, books and snacks to keep children happy). Natalie was cooperative as usual.

Elizabeth...not so much.

Until I agreed to photograph her in what she wanted to be wearing. Her diaper, her necklaces, her bracelets and her heels. I'd like to add that she has matching pairs of both the pink and blue heels, but she insists that she wear one pink and one blue. Don't ask me. It's been a year and half since I could tell that girl what to do! :)



Our FHE activity last week was building gingerbread houses. We had quite the time putting them together and we're pretty sure we've got a future in gingerbread house making!


But seriously, look at this masterpiece!

Our cute friends tried to argue that they even approximated our mad gingerbread house making skills, but alas. Not so much. Celeste is, however, a champ at getting Natalie to fall asleep so we'll keep her around anyway. And Donovan was wearing a t-shirt that said "10 things you didn't know about Chuck Norris." If that isn't a reason to keep these two around, I don't know what is.


And finally, this is for Nana. They say hello and that they miss you. We got to feed them the day before Christmas because it was 85 degrees.


For all you haters out there, keep in mind how awesome Texas is that you can cruise out to the pond in your flip flops in December. I could get used to this life!

We hope you all had as merry of a Christmas as we did and that you had an opportunity feel the true spirit of Christmas. What a magical time of year!