Christmas Day is Here !

Aren't you glad I didn't refer to this as Christmas : Part 4 ? (I promised that was over.)

Today is Christmas day and everyone (except for Elaina) has opened all of their gifts and gotten their fill of Christmas goodies (except for Elaina). We saved a few small presents for underneath the Christmas tree for Elaina to open this morning. Although, she doesn't know this day from the next or why she had a surge of gifts within a short period of time, I wanted her to experience a little Christmas magic with presents under the tree on Christmas morning. With 2 days of unwrapping under her belt, she is now a veteran present opener and breezed through her 3rd round of paper ripping.




"Does Mom know that Santa brought me markers ?"













"I love my new washable markers so much, I can't even set them down !"








After breakfast, we all got ourselves together to get on about our day. Gathering all of our loot from around the house, along with the previous days' gifts, I was a little uncertain that we would be able to fit everything into the truck and still have room for Keegan ! With one of the back seats laid down, and items piled to the celing, we were able to squeeze every single thing, including Keegan, into our Yukon. Our truck seems large any other time, but it's amazing how fast it fills up with a long weekend away.

We had only one stop to make before heading for home. My best friend since kindergarten, Kristin, lives in Florida and was in town visiting her family. It's been nearly 2 years since I had seen her and she hadn't ever met Elaina. We arrived to her parents' home and it was like I was 15 again. They are so incredibly welcoming and have always treated me like family. This time, my husband and daughter were treated like family too. Elaina ate her share of cut out cookies and was shy, but entertained herself by watching Noggin by herself in the rocking chair. We spent almost 2 hours visiting before we needed to get on the road. I'm so glad we were able to make the time see Kristin and her family.

Our drive home seemed to take forever. Maybe it's because we knew we had so much unloading and unpacking to do or maybe it's because it rained so hard much of the way. So much for a " white Christmas." The temperature for much of the weekend hovered near 40 degrees and we drove there and back in the rain. Lucky for us, the rain had ended by the time we pulled into the driveway where Eric made at least 10 trips from the truck into the house.

In summary, Christmas 2006 was excellent for all of us ! We just want to thank all of our family and friends for sharing this special time of year with us and we're thankful to have you in our lives !