Christmas!

What a fun and busy Christmas we had this year! It has been really fun to watch Carrie at this age. Everything about Christmas was exciting to her...the tree, the lights, all the decorations, seeing Santa etc. Seeing it through her eyes brings back so many good memories of Christmas as a kid and all the wonder it brings. She totally surprised me this Christmas...I was expecting lots of meltdowns and some spoiledness stemming from all the gifts she got, but she was so gracious and thankful about all of it and I am so proud of how she handled it all. I did not take nearly as many pictures as I would have liked, but I was just enjoying the holiday so I was not good about getting out the camera. But here are some of the pictures I did get...

Christmas Eve morning we watched the Rudolph movie. C loves TV, but normally just gets 20 minutes here and there so she watched about 45 minutes of the movie before I could tell she was antsy! But here she is watching it with her dada and Hayes.

Then it was time to decorate cookies for Santa! This is first time we have done this and as I was trying to cut out the cookies, I remembered why :). Graham was a very good helper, though, and it turned out to be pretty fun! Carrie loved it...

She HEAVILY sprinkled each cookie.

Beautiful.

Christmas Eve night we always go over to my Aunt Becky and Uncle Jim's house with my dad's whole family. Papa and Uncle E have become part of the tradition as they have joined us the past few years! Carrie had an absolute blast because my cousin Frank's 4 kids come and she loves them! They have a 9 year old little girl who Carrie adores and she followed her around all night! I started to feel bad for sweet Neva because every time I saw Carrie she was either following her or asking "Where's Meba?" Neva was SO sweet to her the whole night, though! And they have 3 other little boys and Carrie just loved them all and would say "Where are my cousins?!" So funny. She was pooped at the end since we didn't get home until 9:30 and she is normally in bed at 7! Here is our group at the Christmas Eve party...

Carrie slept past 7 Christmas morning because she was so tired so that made it nice for us! We could get our coffee and get all ready for her to see her Santa toys! We videoed the whole thing and it is really cute.

Here is what Santa left the girls...Carrie got her new big girl chair and Hayes got the starter chair and they were both filled with goodies. Carrie's was a lot of princess stuff, dora stuff, hello kitty stuff and more. She also got the bitty baby highchair and that busy city thing in front of her chair which she was dying for. (And it has been her favorite oddly enough! Girl knows what she wants...) The whole time she kept saying "Santa got me just what I wanted!"...so cute. Hayes got a bunch of little toys and books.

Seeing what Santa brought.

Happy, clueless Hayes. She was a bit fussy this weekend...think it was all the activity and stimulation because the past couple days she seems back to her old self more. But she has enjoyed looking at some of her fun, new little toys.

Papa and Steppy got Carrie some dress up clothes which she, of course, loved! She wore her Snow White costume immediately!

Uncle E is a great gift giver! He gave her a Dora suitcase full of Dora stuff! She loved all of it. (He also gave her a soccer ball which she wanted!)

Holding Dora while she plays with her new toys.

Then she opened her super hero cape that Graham and I gave her. She kept asking for it and was so excited when she opened it! She said "Just what I wanted!" and ran around the room saying "Super Carrie!"

And her final outfit change involved the Hello Kitty raincoat from Cy Cy and BA to match her boots along with her ballerina leggings from Aunt Becky. She loved all the fun things and changed a million times!!!

The rest of the day was spent playing with new toys! The men fried the turkey just like every year and we had a delicious Christmas meal. We are so thankful to have 2 healthy, wonderful girls and a wonderful family. We are blessed way beyond what we deserve. The greatest Christmas gift of all is our Lord and Savior...Joy to the World, the Lord has come!