Christmas 2011

During the week leading up to it, I kept telling DW I felt like we already had our Christmas this year. A new baby is the best gift ever.

Maybree and I were the first ones up in our house on Christmas morning. In fact, we welcomed Christmas Day around 2:00 a.m.

With all my children, in those wee hours of the morning,  I have often used those feeding times to pray. Christmas morning was definitely one of those times.

I looked at our sweet girl and fought back tears as I thanked God for her, for all He has given me, but above all, for the tiny baby boy born to Mary & Joseph all those years ago. The baby boy who was sent to save us all.

I love Christmas so much. I always have. I love the decorations, the carols, the traditions…I love the pretty packages and I love the expectation and anticipation that comes with them! I love the shopping and baking and the lights and programs and parties. Its all so good and wonderful…and what makes it so good and wonderful is knowing the TRUE meaning of the season. We made sure our girl knew the reason we were celebrating was because of Jesus’ birthday. That’s always first and foremost, but we also have lots of fun with the Santa part of Christmas, too.

 

This year we decided the only thing better than Christmas as a kid, is having kids at Christmas! Annabelle was at such a fun age this year. She enjoyed all the Christmas festivities so much. She loved picking out or making and giving gifts to her friends and family -- She loved finding where Elf-Elf was hiding everyday. (Next year our Elf-Elf will do better…lots of our friends’ elves did way more fun stuff than ours (I’m looking at you Crystal & Ashley), so next year he is going to step it up!) The cutest thing he did was eat some leftover birthday cake after AB’s party…

She loved talking about “Ho-Ho” and what he was going to bring her! Her list was as follows:

- Belle Barbie doll from Wal-Mart. (“Belle Barbie doll” was actually the ginormous Story-time talking Belle doll)

- More play-doh (“because Mommy frowed mine away”)

- a Tabwet (leap frog leap pad tablet…I could do a post all of it’s own on this one… they were SOLD OUT everywhere for weeks…We checked every store and online daily for weeks just hoping to find one in stock…we even had my dad look in China when he was there for work… no luck… we got a small Christmas miracle the week before Christmas and we found one online!)

There’s no comparison to the feeling of getting your child something you know they really want and then to see how much they love it. It really is the best.

Christmas Eve, Little Miss was so excited she could hardly go to sleep. She was wired up when I tried to snap a picture of her in her Christmas jammies before bed…

Before going night-night, she made sure to tell Elf-Elf goodbye, since he would be flying back to the North Pole that night. She also sat out cookies for Santa.

When DW got home from the Christmas Eve service at church, we started to get everything ready for Santa’s arrival. I’m not sure I’ve ever loved him more than when he actually ate the cookies for Santa. He takes this Daddy thing and all the “parts” that come with it seriously. :)

Stockings were stuffed…

and Santa kept with our family’s tradition and sat out our nativity set…

My parents were still staying with us, and I think my Dad was more excited than AB was. We all woke up around 7:00 and waited in the living room for her to wake up… it was after 8:00 before she FINALLY did (with some help)…

She was still half asleep when she came into the living room, but she was excited to see that Ho-Ho had left her a “Belle Barbie Doll!” She had a big time opening the bag to find her presents.

It was so fun letting her just take her time and take it all in. She was sweet and wanted to play with everything right then as she opened it.

That Santa did good this year… he managed to get all three things she had on her list! Plus a Cowgirl Jessie doll and a Barbie hair set!

After she had opened her gifts from Santa, she opened her present from Grammy & Pop…

Once AB was all done, we all opened our gifts, too. It was a sweet morning together.

Of course Ho-Ho couldn’t leave Maybree out… she got a baby doll, an outfit, and a couple pairs of little shoes…

Here’s AB showing her the ladybug night-light from Grammy & Pop… “Mamie” (may-me) is what AB calls her, slept through the whole Christmas morning and this is the only picture I took of her during the gift opening…

Playing Play-Doh with Pop

Mid-Morning we made our way down to my in-laws for Christmas there. We usually do Christmas breakfast in our jammies, but this year had lunch.

It was a fun few hours and we all got some really fun stuff! AB had to take a break mid-way through opening her packages to open the toys and play with them! She’s too much…

We did take a picture of DW’s siblings, the inlaws and the kids, even though some of us were sans make-up. :)

We spent the afternoon at home and AB went back and forth playing with all her new toys. It was too cute. She would play with the tablet for a while, then go out on the sunroom and play Play-Doh and dollhouse.

I’m not real sure how long this play-doh will last at our house. I can’t take the mess it makes… I have a feeling she might be hoping the Easter Bunny will bring some more…

Pappy & Nie-Nie knew she was getting the doll house from Grammy & Pop, so they made sure she had furniture for it and a car for the people, so she was all set! And yes, she’s wearing a princess dress…I wasn’t lying when I say she changes forty times a day and 9 times out of 10, its into a princess dress…

My Mom (with some help from Dad) :)  cooked a big Christmas dinner for supper that night and my in-laws came down to eat with us. It was a great way to end an already wonderful day.

Christmas is always good to us…

Our 2011 Christmas Card:

~amw~