Best Christmas yet!!

Have you ever seen the movie Four Christmas's?! Well our Christmas season is a bit like that, except if you include our own Christmas at home, we had FIVE!! Luckily they were spread out a bit and we never had to go to more than one event the same day...huge improvement on years past! Two weeks ago we had Christmas at my Dad's with my step siblings and their children. Its always a fun time because there are 7 kiddos running around newborn (ok, he wasn't running anywhere this year, lol) to age 11. Next year there will be 8 with Landon!!! And by then the babies will be crawling so it will be INSANE!! Unfortunately Emilie hadn't napped that day so it was our least successful gift opening event of the season, but she had fun nonetheless and was thoroughly spoiled! Then Saturday we had our second event at my paternal grandparents house. This is a little more low key because Em is the only little kiddo at the moment. We played games and ate some incredibly delicious mexican food and did our gift exchange. Em was much more in the mood for opening presents this time (she HAD napped) and loved opening everything...so much so that she tried to open everyone else's. Luckily we got her distracted with one of her new toys and all was good. Then Monday we had my inlaws over. We'd tried to keep it simple and just do appetizers and snacks, but somehow that was harder and this was the more stressful of all the events to prep for. It didn't help that I'd had a bad nights sleep the night before and just wasn't feeling well. But we ended up having a really nice time as a family and the kids enjoyed being even further spoiled! Our fourth Christmas was our personal Christmas morning event. Once Em woke up and came to watch a cartoon in bed with us we texted Grammie Gigi to wake up and got ready to show Emilie what Santa had brought her. We'd been careful not to mention Santa coming the night before because she's a tad bit scared of the jolly old guy and didn't want to keep her up. Once Grammie Gigi was ready and we were connected via skype we let her run into the living room and see what was ahead. She immediately saw her new bike and was ready to ride!!!

Unfortunately it was cold and storming (storming on Christmas morning?! So not right if you ask me but it was!!) so she didn't get to go ride outside but she doesn't know she's missed anything and has ridden it ALL OVER the house already!! :) Gotta love hard floors!! She loved opening her stocking and I had to laugh that her favorite stocking item was the Cinderella jump rope from the $1 store!! OF COURSE IT WAS!!! Then she started digging into the wrapped presents and boy did she have a blast! She got a tea party set, a magnadoodle, a dollhouse, art supplies, and more! Here she is creating a masterpiece for us with her new magnadoodle!

Ok, Mommy MAY have drawn the heart...but she's got the hang of it now and has been drawing all day. Then shortly after we finished up our Christmas and got dressed the rest of my family on my Mom's side came over for lunch. It amazed me how we had an entire meal to serve and it was soooo easy, but we'd all done a part and it went incredibly smoothly. We had such a nice time together and it was the perfect Christmas!! Just as we finished lunch the rain turned to snow and we got to enjoy something very rare in Texas...a White Christmas!! We all stood around the windows watching the snow come down and enjoying a moment that is very few and far between in our part of Texas. The snow was beautiful and just capped off the perfect Christmas holiday. Later in the afternoon we decided Emilie needed to enjoy the snow but she didn't have any good gloves (its TEXAS people, we aren't very well prepared for snow!) so it didn't last long. But they did try to build a snowman!

Ok so you can barely see it...but I was NOT going out in that!

My not so sure about this cold Emilie and her Daddy about as bundled as you'll see a Texan :)

I once heard someone say that if you wanted to upset your wife to get her something practical, something that plugs in. At the time (a younger version of myself) I whole heartedly agreed. But this year the hubs did an awesome job and got me a pink Artisan Kitchenaid Mixer!!! I have wanted one for years!!! Of course he blew our agreed upon budget (not that I'm surprised, he does it EVERY year) but I love it!! I'm just trying to decide what the first creation is I should make in my new mixer! I also broke the practical rule and got him a blower/mulcher thingy for yardwork. (Yep...I said "thingy" I know very little about these things and had to do quite a bit of research to pick this "thingy" but it seems I did a good job!) He's excited to get outside and use it, and I'm excited to get some of the neighbors leaves out of my flower beds!!

All in all it was a wonderful Christmas! We made lots of memories and really enjoyed watching the excitement on Em's face. Next Christmas will be different, we'll have another little one to account for and while today I can't image it, I'm sure I'll say when its all over that it too was...the best Christmas yet!

Merry Christmas friends!!