christmas!

Snippets from our Christmas morning!

Is it just me- or does it seem like each year the prep leading up to Christmas gets a little more intense and the whole month of December seems to go by faster and faster?...this is not okay. I'm still (the week after) listening to Christmas tunes. Shhhhh. It's fine.

My parents were able to be with us the week of Christmas! My Mom usually had at least one of the two grandbabies in her lap at any given time- and sometimes both of them!

 My Grammy came out as well, so we had a big family dinner with all the cousins living out here. These are just a few of her many, many great grandkids!

 The days filled up quickly with different things going on (and nights were dedicated to finishing our playroom surprise!) so we didn't get to make homemade gingerbread cookies as per usual, but the girls didn't mind one bit. Homemade or from a mix, they still rolled them out to death and decorated the snot out of 'em. (And we weren't tempted to eat any of them because of it- so maybe it was a win/win!)

Christmas morning, Olivia was the first to wake up (as usual). She ran down to my room and told me Santa brought her stocking (we put them in their bedrooms to entertain them for a bit before we have to roll out of bed!). I told her to go wake up Jillian so they could look at them, but she didn't want to- she just went back to her room for a bit and ate all the candy out of hers! A few minutes later Jillian woke up and they spent the next 30 minutes oooing and ahhing over the trinkets in their stockings before coming back down to get us.

Then we opened gifts. Olivia is still in the phase where she wants to get one out of the box and just start playing with that one instead of being bothered to open another one. And Charlotte is just happy to eat the wrapping paper! Jillian kept everyone on pace, however.

Christmas with kids is just five thousand times better, seeing the magic of it all through their eyes! It really is the most wonderful time of year.