Oh, Christmas

I followed these directions to take this pic - guess I need more lights though :)

And so I join every blogger I read with my own recap of our Christmas. As usual, we had a busy and great one. We have one Christmas celebration to go this weekend (with my mom's side of the extended family), but we packed in a lot over the last week!

I will give a day by day account of the festivities!

Just a VERY small selection of Christmas crafts from daycare

My birthday

We started off with breakfast at Sun Street Breads, review up on We Got Served... tomorrow? It's all up to my Bunjamin :) Ben had to go to work after that, so we drove separate, and I took advantage of being all the way over in South Minneapolis by going to Heartfelt and Wild Rumpus with Annie.

This was the only snow we saw anywhere close to Christmas... it felt weird to not have a White Christmas!

Yup, that's a real chicken under there. It came out and FREAKED Annie out :)

After returning home for her nap, we went and saw my friends Lori and Erin and hung out for awhile - a low key and relaxing birthday! We got home early and Ben forced me to watch White Christmas - I also wrapped presents. I really am not a fan of any old movies...... but oh well, Ben wanted to watch it so I agreed :)

iPhone pics inside with flash... not so hot

Christmas Eve

This was our day at home, so we did our family presents this morning instead of Christmas morning. Luckily Annie doesn't know the difference. We haven't made a big deal about Santa yet since she doesn't seem to care/know who is giving her things - but we again gave her 4 presents from us with the theme want, need, wear, read. Her stocking is from Santa.  The want was a table and chairs, need was some plastic dishes from Ikea, wear was 2 pairs of jammies and an outfit, read was 2 new books. 

We had set everything out the night before - I recorded her reaction to the presents and it was pretty funny - she just was like - table! Sat right down, demanded water. The video is 8 minutes long so I assume no one will watch it, but for family, it's here. The best part was when she got to the slippers!! in her stocking - she immediately said "Jammies off, slippers on" and laid down on the ground :) ha! I loved listening to her recite each item that she got: book! jammies! shirt! pants!, especially in her stocking - it took her awhile to realize that the first things were stickers, but then it was stickers! colors! (crayons), or-ment! Santa! (got a bit confused because it was a snow man, but whatever) and finally the Socks! ..... SLIPPERS! Everything is very exclamatory :)

She had these same jams last year - the pickings at carters were slim :)

Bringing Ben his present from her - I had to make him open it right away because it was an aeropress and I knew he'd want to use it immediately for coffee :) We now have 3 coffee making systems.... sigh.

My parents and Grandma came over for lunch later - snuggles were had.

Just lounging

Insisted on eating dinner at her new table (and with boots on, of course) - Ben smoked a pork loin and we had roasted broccoli and mashed potatoes.

After dinner and clean up (since Ben refuses to do anything until the kitchen is clean and dishes are done...) we settled in to watch the Grinch - Ben was angry that the classic wasn't on iTunes, but we settled for the new version. This is the first movie we've ever tried to have Annie watch and she wasn't so into it! I ended up fast forwarding through like 45 minutes so she could at least see the uplifting end instead of the depressing middle before she crashed :) We did bribe her to cuddle with us for awhile with a cookie which was fun!

Christmas Day

We got up at what felt like the crack of dawn (real time - 7am) so we could get Annie up and get to Ben's parents house BY 8am. Our little Annie is NOT a fan of being woken up "early" (aka any time before she wants to get up) so she was NOT PLEASED to be woken up at 7:15. She got over it and was chanting the names of all of our family members most of the way down.

All 3 little kiddos in their matching Christmas jams!

Annie's stocking from her grandparents

Lucky Annie got a doll cradle built by Grandpa, complete with a doll blanket that matches hers - and a doll diaper bag that matches the fabric of mine pretty well! She loves it - mostly was thrilled to have actual diapers and wipes that she is ALLOWED to play with at her own free will :)

Grace and Sam got a busy board built by Grandpa!

New cradle, with wipes helpfully laid over the edge :)

The closest I could get to both of them looking at the camera. Presents are distracting! See those dolls?? Those were my present to Grace & Sam - twin baby dolls :) Awesome!

After the kids tore through their presents, the adults opened - Annie helped by bringing the paper from each one to Tony who would put it in a pile behind him.

Eating a cinnamon roll

Annie loves family pictures

We then got Annie all spiffed up for mass with Ben's whole family (note our coordinating diaper bags in the background)

Oh Annie. Any attempts to get her to not suck her thumb..... yeah, failed.

After church, we came home and all had lunch - and Annie looked cute :)

Ben and I brought this really easy tortellini salad as our contribution to the meal.

During baby nap time, we all sat around not talking on our various devices :) I got a Kindle - yay!

While the boys smoked their Christmas cigars

After Annie woke up, we headed to my parents house for our next Christmas celebration. Really thankful our parents live only about 20 minutes apart!

Oh Annie. I swear, 80% of the time she's playing, it's some variation of going to sleep. So excited to be in the crib!!!! (after probably not even really napping)

Definitely warming up to Maggie - she even tried to feed her some pretend soup. Maggie wasn't interested.

Playing Christmas tunes! Too bad we'll likely never have room for a piano... (or... good thing, for us :)

The past several years, we always just do appetizers for our small Christmas celebration - I love it! Not pictured: mini pigs in a blanket that took forever to bake.

Annie loves it too - especially the part where she dips her fingers in ketchup and licks it off.

Apparently eating cookies is hard work :)

More presents!

Liz trying out Ben's new chair - now he doesn't have to sit on the ground (the horror!)

Annie's new shoes and new apron

Got a new outfit from Liz - insisted it go on immediately! SO CUTE. Looks like it'll fit for about 2 years too :)

The big present of the night was my Dad's new iPad - I think he likes it!

We left around 8 and Annie was WIRED - I thought she'd crash in the car but she laughed and sang the whole way home. What a nut! 

Day after Christmas

Since most had the day after Christmas off, my parents hosted my dad's extended family at their house that day - luckily it wasn't an early morning affair so we all got to sleep in. I got up around 8 and Annie was still completely passed out. We hung out at home and then went over to my parents around 11 and stayed all day - it was a blast seeing my family and seeing Annie play with all my cousin's kids - she's at the age now where she can kind of fend for herself a bit and doesn't need someone hovering, so she could just go play with them on her own. Fun for her and us!

Playing with Ella, who is the closest to her age - they were alone in the basement - just playing nicely with toy food - had to sneak a pic of them :)

Most hilarious part of the day was my cousin's kids "show" in the basement - they dragged us down there, performed their "show" then told us to go upstairs while they came up with more. We told them it was now or never, so they invited some audience participation! Annie was getting into it - after she saw them doing some cartwheels, she ran in, threw herself on the ground, and rolled around :) ha!!

And then, just laid there with the bears she brought over

This was all because I suggested they do a pyramid :)

It was an amazing Christmas - Annie was so excited about her presents and had SO much fun with her family both days. Having a kid makes Christmas about a million times more fun, for me at least, and I even was a huge Christmas lover before! I am looking forward to some slightly more relaxing times in the future though... the calm before the real storm begins :)