Our Christmas

We had a very good Christmas and felt blessed that we were able to spend time with all of our family. It was a little hectic being that we had many places to go but luckily it was spread out over a few days since most of Brian's family gathers together before Christmas day. So we headed to the Tippens on the Sunday before Christmas to spend with Susan's family. One of the pictures below shows Abby Grace with her 2nd cousins. This was the first time this year for Abby Grace to open Christmas presents, but she was really more interested in playing with the dogs they had. We finally got her into opening her presents, but then she was right back to playing with the dogs!

Then on Christmas Eve, we headed to Ross Bridge, Tempie's house, to celebrate with Carl's side of the family. We played Dirty Santa, and it really was a lot of fun! Abby Grace cracked us all up after she opened her gift from Grandma and said, "I already have this at my house!" (It was an Auburn board book) Anyway, we ended up staying there later so the kiddies didn't get to bed as early as they needed to. You know, we had to put out milk and cookies for Santa and sprinkle reindeer food in the yard. However, we finally got everyone to bed so that we could do our elf work and for mommy to finish wrapping presents! This is something that I usually do earlier but having Caleb has made that a little more difficult. I have been used to doing stuff after Abby Grace goes to bed but Caleb has decided that he is going to be a little more demanding then! So needless to say, I was wrapping presents to 2 AM! Luckily, Abby Grace slept the next day until 8:45 and we began all the fun of Christmas! Three of the pictures below show Abby Grace and many of her presents. Her main Santa gifts were a dollhouse, cradle (which my dad made for me when I was little--we told her that Santa got it from my dad so that he would have something to put her new baby in), baby, and high chair. She also got a ball, which was very important because she kept saying that Santa was going to bring her a dollhouse and ball (she actually said a Barney ball but Santa couldn't make that kind this year!) I know I haven't said too much about Caleb, but he got presents too. His main Santa gift was a rocking Giraffe and some other little baby toys. He really spent most of the day doing what he usually does, sleeping and eating!!! However, he managed a few smiles and was really good the entire day (what could be bad about having so many different people to hold him all day!)

Then we headed to Carl and Susan's for lunch and Christmas with them. Somehow we even managed for Abby Grace to take a nap and then we headed to my house, which Brian says is kind of like watching Christmas Vacation. Hey, we have a lot of people, so it is bound to get crazy! We were all exhausted by this point but still had a good time and definitely enjoyed being able to be lazy all day on Friday!