Christmas : Part 1

Let the gift giving commence !

Today, we spent the bulk of the daytime celebrating Christmas with my mom, dad, brother, and sister-in-law and my cutie-munchkin-nephew, Colin.

Greg, Kate and Colin arrived shortly before lunchtime and we all stuffed ourselves with delicious ham and all the sides, courtesy of Mom. Yummola ! I'm happy to report that each child, Elaina and Colin, ate happily without incident, such as Elaina's Thanksgiving Day Meltdown '06 as you may recall. Hooray ! Just for the record, Picky Pickerson liked ham today. She has liked it in the past, yet forgets from time to time that she likes it. Goofball.

After we were all able to roll ourselves away from the table, it was time for opening presents. Again, another "Hooray !" I was incredibly impressed that neither Elaina nor Colin tried to smuggle each other's wrapped or unwrapped gifts and both played quite well with their new toys and not just the boxes and gift wrap. They were so cute together ! I love it ! Elaina got some awesome gifts ranging from an AquaDoodle (which is like the coolest non-messy gift ever !) to some great jammies and loads of great new books to keep us all happy. I've been looking forward to some new reading material and Elaina's love for books has not yet waivered, which in itself, is a great thing. Eric and I made out pretty well ourselves with some great new gifts to enjoy. THANKS MOM AND DAD !

Given all the excitement of the day up to this point, we still had one more Christmas planned for the evening. Pretty much all of us went down for a nap in some fashion. Elaina isn't quite used to 2 naps a day, but I was sure to cuddle with her and let her soak in some quiet time to recoup and recharge knowing what her evening held in store for her. I'm not postive that she really, truly went to sleep, but the peace and quiet was beneficial to her anyhow.

Next, we all loaded up and headed to my Aunt and Uncle's house for the second half of our family celebration. Read on ... this requires it's own post !