Starting out with Christmas Eve Day...
I spent the morning & early afternoon dealing with a crisis at work while Mike & Katie did some cleaning. After the crisis was averted, we spent the rest of the afternoon preparing cookies & food for Christmas Day. Katie was a big help in the kitchen, she always wants to help out...gotta love it!
She had a blast making the faces on the gingerbread cookies. A little too much fun, I thought we were going to run out of the decorative gel...lol.
Funfetti cookies...we DID run out of sprinkles about half way through the decorating process :-)
Christmas Eve
Food preparations done, we went over to Steve & Kerrie's for Christmas Eve. Katie was so happy that it was finally time to go and see her cousins!!! We had Chinese food for dinner and then the kids opened their gifts. Mike gave each of the kids a bell... I think they were broken because none of the adults could hear them ringing, but the kids said that they could hear them :-)
Before we left, Meme read 'Twas the Night Before Christmas' to the girls and then it was time to get the kiddos nestled in their beds.
On the way home, we stopped by to see the "Griswold" house in all it's glory! Of all the things to look at, Katie was in awe of the "singing tree".
It was about 9:30pm by the time we headed for home and Katie was wiped out. She fell asleep in the car. As I was carrying her into the house, I asked her if she wanted to put out cookies for Santa and she groggily replied, "No, I'm too tired, let's do it tomorrow"...lol. But, shortly after I told her that Santa was only coming tonight, she popped out of bed and picked out some cookies.
She also left Santa a letter...let me translate...her letter says, "Santa, please don't forget me". I assured her that Santa could never forget her.
After putting out the cookies, carrots, milk & water...it was time to check Norad to see where Santa was. He was just coming down from Canada and would be in Massachusetts shortly, so it was definitely time to get Katie to BED! She went without a fuss.
Christmas Day
Half way through the night, Katie came into our bed. I was surprised that she didn't want to check to see if Santa had come yet, but she came right in and fell back to sleep....phew. If she had checked, she would have found that Santa HAD come, but her parents weren't quite ready to get up yet...it was only 2:30am and we had just gone to bed at 1:30am....YIKES!
Every year, I try to get up before Katie to get myself 'ready' for the day's festivities...at least take a shower if nothing else. But this year, I figured she would be too excited and there would be no chance of a shower before she got up. So, I set my alarm in hopes of at least getting a coffee before she woke up. I was up at 6:30am...by 7:30am, Mike & I were bored with waiting, so we woke Katie up.
Mike went in to get her up and when she realized he was there, she cuddled up with him and started to snuggle back under the covers until Mike said, "Merry Christmas, Katie" and her eyes popped open and she said, "I HAVE TO GO SEE THE PRESENTS THAT SANTA LEFT FOR ME!" She came out of our room with tussled hair, sleep still in her eyes and a huge smile on her face. SO CUTE!
Her reaction was pure Christmas morning excitement... just what I wanted to see!!!
Every present that she opened, she said, "OH MY GOSH! IT'S JUST WHAT I WANTED ALL MY LIFE!" lol...it was just priceless.
Every present that she opened, she said, "OH MY GOSH! IT'S JUST WHAT I WANTED ALL MY LIFE!" lol...it was just priceless.
There were also many "MERRY CHRISTMAS MOMMY/DADDY, I LOVE YOU!"
Every time she said it, I couldn't help but tear up and thank my lucky stars that she is my little girl. She was truly so thankful for all of her gifts and it made me happy to see her so happy.
One of the favorites...Fancy Nancy (FN). After opening FN, she wouldn't put her down. FN even had to help her opening the rest of her presents. This slowed down the process a bit.
One of the favorites...Fancy Nancy (FN). After opening FN, she wouldn't put her down. FN even had to help her opening the rest of her presents. This slowed down the process a bit.
After an hour or so, Katie just wanted to play with the presents that she had already opened. I'm not sure if she was bored with opening the gifts or if she just didn't want it to end and she was savoring it. We had to bribe her to get her to finish opening gifts.
My family joined us for a nice Christmas dinner and presents later in the day. Normally, we just have finger foods out for guests, but this year we decided on the big dinner. I'm not sure if I liked it or not. On the one hand, it was a GREAT dinner. But, on the other hand, it is a lot of work and limits the time I get to spend visiting with my guests.
It was a really nice day. I feel incredibly blessed. Kaitlyn is such an amazingly gracious little girl (especially for a 3 year old) and I truly feel like the luckiest mom in the world.
Katie said that she was most excited to have gotten...
1) Swimming Doggie
2) Baby Whoopsie Doo
3) Zhu Zhu pet
But, the presents that she has been playing with the most are...
1) Fancy Nancy
2) Leapster
3) Little People
Christmas, over for another year, but I can't seem to bring myself to take down any of the decorations yet. We had a great holiday season and am not ready to let it go just yet...maybe in another week :-)
1 comment:
I'm usually still taking down my decorations at Valentines Day... the urgency to take them down just isn't there.
Glad you had a great Christmas!
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