Merry Christmas to All, and to All a Good Night

Merry Christmas!!!

I hope that everyone has had a wonderful and blessed Christmas. It's about 9:30 on Christmas night, and Mom has settled down with Blogger after a spectacular day! Dad is on the couch with his GameBoy. Olivia is down for the night. Ahhh....peace!

We celebrated Christmas Eve with Josh's brother and wife, Micah and Mary. We actually ate out and then came back to our house to open gifts. Olivia racked up from Mimi & Pop. She got this rock-awesome Kitchen Set that even Micah and Mary loved playing with!!!

"No, Aunt Mary...it goes over here!!"

For those of you who know my husband, you know that he's a Nintendo junkie...well not anymore, but he used to be. Now he hardly every plays video games, but he still loves Mario. So, when I saw this radio control Mario Cart...I had to get it for him. He LOVED it...but then again, so did Olivia. She thought Daddy's new toy was the coolest!!!

Try as we did, we didn't get to bed early. Instead, mom was baking and dad was...well you know...helping with other stuff. After getting into bed late, we woke up early this morning, and guess who had stopped by our house! Good Ol' St. Nick!! He brought Olivia a Swing & Slide, two baby dolls, a shopping cart, the TMX Elmo, and Little leaps learning system!! Olivia was obviously a very good girl this year.

A picture before Olivia awoke. I think that Daddy and I came down just after Santa left. His boxes were still in the garage!!!

Olivia slept in, but when she finally got up this morning, she didn't hesitate to dig right in to all of her toys. Here she is with Lizbeth, one of her new babies. As you can see, she and Lizbeth are swinging.

Enough of that, and on to something else. She loved her shopping cart. It goes so well with the Kitchen that Mimi and Pop bought her!!

Ahoy Mates! She's loving this climbing toy...maybe this will help keep her off the stairs!!

What made me think that this girl wouldn't be a great big sister! Look at her feeding this baby!!! She's a pro!!!!

After Santa, we had breakfast with Mimi, Pop, and Aunt Bre. Then we played until it was time to go to the family reunion. We hit my Aunt's house around 12:30 and got to see most of my Dad's side of the family. Then off to Mimi & Pops! Olivia was a champ going from place to place, but it was worth it. She loaded up on lots of cool stuff all day long!!!

Here's the family pic with Santa! Olivia wasn't a fan, but would sit calmly (not happily, but calmly) as long as Mommy had her. We stood in line for over 2 hours on Friday to see this man!!! Am I a devoted mom or what -- more like a mom who procrastinates! Word to the wise...don't wait until the Friday before Christmas to visit Santa...it's not good.


So, tomorrow is December 26th, and I am one of the few that has to return to work. My entire family is off, and I'm having a hard time accepting that I won't be home with them!! But, we did have a wonderful 4-day weekend, and getting back into routine will be nice. I hope that all of you are doing well, and be sure to check out Sweet Pea's site for another Christmas surprise!!!

Merry Christmas and Happy Birthday Jesus!!!