Christmas at Our House {2012}

Okay.  For real, this is the last 2012 Christmas post. I want to record the memories while I can still kind of remember them. 

Crafting presents for the grandparents.

We spent the day before Christmas Eve working on last-minute presents - and finally finishing the Christmas stockings for our family that I had been intending to make for over a year!

I am really pleased with how they turned out!  Did you catch my photo post with the rest of our Christmas decorations?

Christmas kiss for sister!

Christmas Eve morning, we got everyone up and dressed and headed out for a celebration at Andrew's parents house.

Adelaide slept through most of the festivities.

New Noah's Ark Little People playset!

After a trip home and a nap for the toddler, we visited my grandparent's house for their annual Christmas Eve party.

Tradition: Flashlights in our stockings!

Presents, yay!

Once we were home, the kids got to open one gift - their Christmas Eve pajamas, plus a book to read that night (we used one of our Christmas Eve advent books - you can read about that fail here - the one we chose was The Night Before Christmas, in fabric book form.  I sewed it for Lincoln last year).

All ready for bedtime.

Once Lincoln was asleep, we brought all of our gifts upstairs - they had been hidden in the laundry room since we were afraid Lincoln would open everything prematurely.  Andrew put together Lincoln's big gift - the Little People Animal Sounds Zoo - and we set up all the animals for Christmas morning.  Having little kids is really, really fun.

We started the next morning by reading the Christmas story in our bedroom - where we all tend to wake up since Addie sleeps in our room and Lincoln typically spends at least half of the night in bed with us.  Then it was time to check out all the presents!

I think Lincoln was worn out from all of the excitement in the last few days,.  He didn't even notice the zoo when we first let him into the living room (we have video proof).  After a few minutes, he warmed up to the idea and we got him to open a couple of gifts. He was most interested in anything that involved a truck, naturally.  We ended up stopping to eat breakfast in the middle of opening gifts, since Lincoln was a little overwhelmed by everything.  Addie was content to just nurse through all of the proceedings.

The Little Blue Truck board book was exciting enough that we had to stop opening gifts to read it.  Andrew is wearing his new "You Shall Not Pass Go" Monopoly t-shirt from Busted Tees.

It took an hour or so for Lincoln to recognize that the stockings were filled with exciting things!

He dug right into the stocking at my parent's house when we headed over on Christmas afternoon.  He had fun playing with his new Little People Batcave!

We watched some Mickey Mouse Clubhouse and snuggled for awhile before dinner (spaghetti -yum!  Andrew even made copycat Olive Garden alfredo sauce for us and it was delicious).

Before we left, we even got to Skype with my little brother and his wife.  We connected my laptop to the big TV in the living room so the whole family could see what was going on.  Uncle Andy and Aunt Rachel got to meet Adelaide thanks to the awesomeness of modern technology.

Finally, it was time to head home.

Yeah - this is what our house looked like after two days of Christmas.

We got Lincoln to bed, ignored the mess, and headed to our movie room in the basement to have Christmas Root Beer Floats (a brand new tradition we were way too excited about) and watch Star Wars. 

It was a beautiful Christmas.  I hope yours was too!