A Merry Little Christmas It Was!

Here's a little sampling of our Christmas Eve and Christmas Day in photos.  We had a Merry Little Christmas...here are some highlights:

Daisy guarding the fireplace hearth on Christmas Eve:




Baking cookies with Daddy:



Cookies baking (the girls thought it was so great to have the light on in the stove while they were cooking):



We kept Violet away from the oven, but once the cookies were done baking and were cooling down, we let her look.  Can you tell how much she loves sweets? Haha!



The big girls tucked into bed.  They were awake until about 1am.  Ginger ended up coming down to our bedroom and falling asleep in our bed- then we brought her back up to her bedroom.  They were both way too excited to sleep!




Santa arrived shortly after the big girls fell asleep.  It looks like a lot of presents, but I guess that's because we have more people now!  The girls got two gifts from Santa and one or two small gifts from us.  I have to remember this for next year because it seemed like the perfect amount.  I was worried that it wouldn't feel like "enough" - and I really had to resist going out to buy more stuff.  But in the end, I was so glad that we kept it to basically three gifts total per child. 





Santa's cookies the next morning (with a side of almond milk):





Grandma Pat came down in the late morning (around 10:30am).  Paprika had been up for many hours, but was fine with waiting to open presents.  Ginger woke up right as Grandma arrived. Violet let Grandma Pat hold her and kept giving her hugs.  It was so sweet!  The big girls were so excited to see Grandma Pat and to eat the Cinnamon Pull-Apart Bread that she brought!




After some Cinammon Pull Apart Bread, we opened presents...stockings first.  Santa brought the girls each some crayons, play doh, and a dvd.  In retrospect, the only thing Santa really needed to put in the stocking were crayons!  Live and learn.



Violet had a great time being in the middle of everything, and she had so much fun opening presents.  I thought she would be too young to understand, but nope - she got it! She always surprises me with what she understands!



Ginger's present from us was a toy horse.  That's the gift she found in the closet a few days before Christmas!  I bought it on clearance at Target back in July and I had been saving it for her for Christmas.  So, of course, she had to discover it just two days before Christmas even though it had been sitting in the closet since July!  Haha.  But even though it wasn't a surprise, I still gave it to her.  She loved it - she loves horses so much, so I knew it would be a hit.



It was a year of dolls.  All three girls love dolls (all kinds) - so there were a lot of happy faces opening gifts!



The rest of the day we spent eating great food, talking, playing with presents, and otherwise relaxing.  It was a great Christmas - even though Daisy did jump into the Pumpkin Pie before any of us had a chance to eat it!  Oh, Crazy Daisy!  Still - it was a great Christmas!



The End.