Christmas

After the fun of Christmas morning at our house we headed over to my parents house to continue the fun and open a mountain of presents.  Santa had left some presents for us in our stockings at Grandmas house so we got to do stockings part II.

Eva not too sure what to do about all the excitement, and Ally enjoying some things from her stocking.  Allyson has been enjoying all the candy from her stocking and is constantly asking to have another piece.

My mom had the great idea to slow down the present opening and open the presents one at a time so we could watch people opening the gifts we gave and enjoy each persons presents.  I really loved this, it was nice to take our time and really enjoy the moment instead of having the crazy madness of tearing into the presents. Luckily for the kids they all got to open all their presents first before the adults took turns.

Eva started to get the hang of opening presents, but only because she wanted to rip the paper and put it in her mouth!  Eva was so good to just sit on my lap the entire time we opened presents, she didn't make a peep (Merry Christmas to me!).  After present time she went down for a much needed nap.

Ally was a pro at opening the presents and was so cute as she unwrapped each one.

One thing I want to remember (and do again) is that we let Ally do some of her own Christmas shopping.  We took her to the Dollar Store, gave her a list of people (her cousins and Grandparents) and let her choose a gift for each one.  She was totally overwhelmed with the choices at first but eventually she picked out a gift for each person on her list.  I really wanted her to be able to think about giving gifts to others and not just thinking about what she wanted to get (although some presents were definitely more her tastes than the receiver). 

This year we had a first, Christmas Dinner on the patio.  This crazy warm and dry winter made for a beautiful Christmas day.  Even though it was nice I hope we get some rain soon.

We had a wonderful Christmas together with family and ended the day properly exhausted and happy.

I loved these cute pajamas I got the girls.  I am pushing the matching outfits as long as I can get away with it, I love it.

This is actually the day after Christmas Eva woke up before Allyson and got to try out some of her new toys without her big sister jumping in.