Christmas Eve and Christmas Day

Emily was so excited about Christmas this year...the presents, Santa, the holiday related activities and like I've mentioned a few times, the crafts and the decorations!  On Christmas Eve, she and Rob went to visit the Anders' family for their annual gathering while I stayed home and got everything ready for Santa's arrival later that night and prepared food for Christmas with my family on Tuesday.  As soon as she got home, she was ready for jammies and played with her new remote control truck and colored in a new coloing book. 

She got the milk and cookies ready for Santa...

She left the little CFA cow because she really wanted to know if Santa would prefer chicken nuggets next year and the little mice have been around since I was a little girl and she thought Santa may like to see them too!

She went to bed early and Rob and I waited on the big guy to arrive.  At 3:30 a.m. on Christmas morning, she came into our bedroom.  I was sound asleep until Rob woke me up to tell me she was awake.  Next thing, I knew we were down stairs at 3:45 getting ready to open presents.  I know a lot of parents would tell their kids to go back to sleep, it was too early and in hindsight, maybe I should have because I was beat!  But all I could think was in just a few short years, I will be the one busting into her room at noon to get her out of the bed to see what Santa left! Emily is such a blessed little girl with many people who love her and I think she received enough goodies for five kids but it makes me happy to see her happy so...Santa took care of the toys and Mommy and Daddy bought her an ipad with new kid-sized earphones and an otter box to protect it.  She was so excited and didn't really put it down all of Christmas day!

Around 8:30, Grandma and Papa came to our house to open MORE presents and eat breakfast and around 12:30, Aunt Tracey, Justin and Shannon joined us for even MORE presents and MORE food!  It was so nice that everyone was able to spend the day together. I am pleased to say that all of these photos were taken on my new Nikon D3100 camera and Rob received a new motorcycle jacket that he LOVES!

We had a great holiday and after everyone left and we settled in for the evening, I asked Emily "What was the best part of Christmas?" and her reply was priceless..."Giving and family...oh and my new iPad!"  I think that pretty much sums it up!  Until next year...