We had a fantastic Christmas here. We started celebrating Christmas Eve with the traditional BBQ dinner at our house. It was smaller than years in the past but it was still nice to be surrounded by family on Christmas Eve.
Preston's girlfriend got to join us this year. Taylor loves Kasie. She's always showing us where she lives when we drive by her neighborhood and asking Preston if she can go with him when they hang out. Taylor is one lucky little lady that Uncle Preston's nice enough to let her tag along.
Tay got her very first softball glove! I can't wait to look out the window and see her and DJ playing catch in our yard.
And a very special treat from Daddy. She got her first NFL jersey and of course we can't get a jersey for anyone but Peyton Manning. We love him in this house.
New Christmas jammies. . .
And what family event would be complete without some type of frosting battle? This time it was with the chocolate from the chocolate fountain. Poor Great Grandma. I'm glad she has fun goofin' around with these boys!
We left cookies and carrots for Santa and his reindeer. We wrote our note for Santa and Taylor really hoped the reindeer would eat all their carrots this year. Last year she was pretty upset to see that one of them had left half a carrot behind.
We read two books before bed - The Soldiers' Night Before Christmas and the classic Night Before Christmas. Taylor woke up at 5:30am to tell us it was Christmas morning. We made her crawl into bed with us and fall back asleep. At 7:30am she woke up and excitedly said, "Merry Christmas! Daddy, Mommy, it's time to get up now! It's Christmas time!!". Then DJ explained to her that we had snuck up on Santa last night while he was dropping off presents for her and we got pictures of him by our tree! Taylor just looked at DJ with big eyes and said "you mean like the M&M's did"? We were so confused and she said "you know, when the red one says 'he really does exist' and then falls over". We had no idea she was referring to an M&M Christmas commercial.
She thought it was so silly that Santa left some crumbs from his cookies behind but loved that we got pictures of him next to our tree as he dropped of presents for her.
I LOVE her morning hair. The bangs crack me up!
She was very excited to see that Santa came through this year and brought her a pink Razor scooter. But my favorite part of Christmas came when she got to see what Santa left in her stocking. She opened up her stocking, closed it on her lap, looked at me and DJ and said, "Are you kidding me?!?! 2 packs!!" She was over the moon about the 2 packs of fake press-on nails Santa had left in her stocking. Santa sure did good this year!
I honestly think she may have been more excited about the little things filling her stocking than she was with everything she had opened on Christmas Eve. When she found the package of new princess panties she pulled them out and said "New panties! It's just what I wanted!"
A new tooth brush got a great reaction too . . .
Special new earrings of her very own . . .
And the morning wouldn't be complete without a test drive through the hallway on her brand new scooter.
Her big present from DJ and I was the V-Tech Innotab 2S. It's like an iPad for little hands. Everything she likes to do on DJ's iPad can be done on this. She can play games, draw pictures, read books, work on writing and spelling. The best thing about it is the games have different levels so they can be played up until she's 9 year old. She hasn't let it down since she got it.
After Christmas morning festivities at our house we went to Paul and Carrie's for Christmas breakfast. We look forward to this every year. After breakfast the younger kids (Taylor and cousins) get to open gifts and this year the adults all did a White Elephant gift exchange. It was pretty fun and I think everyone was very happy with what they got. Joel and Ranee got to join us this year too!
Taylor got a Barbie camper from Grandma and Grandpa. I think it was very fitting since she's always asking to go play in their real camper in the back yard! She's even made Grandpa have a camp out back there this summer! One morning he even let her eat breakfast out there after having a sleep over.
We spent the rest of the morning snacking on food, playing games and hanging out. Later in the afternoon we headed over to Paul's parents house to spend some time with that side of the family. Taylor was so excited to see her cousin Sophia. That poor girl gains an extra shadow every time Taylor is around. We are so blessed to have such great family to spend the holidays with. We wouldn't want it any other way.
And just for giggles. . . my two loves dressing alike . . . We may have to get DJ a jersey for the Bronco's though.
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