This was, without a doubt, our most fun Christmas! The girls both had such a great time with a special breakfast (cinnamon rolls, bacon, eggs, and orange juice!) and especially playing with their presents. Abby had trouble falling asleep on Christmas Eve - she was pretty excited that Santa was coming to leave us some presents - and was up until at least 10:30 or 11:00. She was a little worried about leaving him a cookie, though. She wanted to make sure that he wouldn't take all the cookies, but just the one that we left out for him. And first thing on Christmas morning, when she came downstairs, she wanted to check that the rest of the cookies were still here. (They were!)
We got the girls a sled, and since it was too big to wrap it was the first present Abby saw when she came down. She immediately sat down in it, and then gave Gingham a ride. It was one of Nora's favorites, too. She spent the whole morning climbing in and out of it, and spent a lot of time just sitting in it and bouncing up and down. Since we got about 5 inches of snow on Christmas Eve into Christmas, after we finished opening presents we went outside to try it out. Abby had a great time getting pulled around the yard - and poor Adam discovered that he does not have a future as a sled dog. Poor Nora fell facefirst out of the sled into the snow almost immediately, so she didn't have much fun with it after that. She's never going to trust Adam in the snow again!
Adam and I both had cinnamon rolls Christmas morning when we were growing up, so that's one tradition we're definitely going to continue with our family. And (I know it's a surprise) our girls are pretty big fans of cinnamon rolls, too.
Abby had a lot of fun digging into her stocking. Nora wasn't too interested - she was too busy climbing in and out of the sled to care much about what else might be going on.
Santa was good to the girls - lots of toys and candy in their stockings. And of course, he didn't forget Gingham, either. He had a little stocking with some candy in it too.
One of Abby's first presents that she opened was this tub of play food. She immediately emptied it out on the couch and had no interest in opening any other presents after that.
Nora didn't care too much about opening presents, but she had a great time playing with all the bows on the presents.
Eventually, we did convince Abby to open up the rest of her presents. One of her favorites was a tutu that I made for her since she's been talking about being a ballerina and pretending that everything she can put around her waist is a tutu. She opened the little one I made for Gingham first, so she was pretty excited to see one for her, too.
Highlights for Adam and me included a Kindle for him and an iPad for me. Adam's deciding which "real" newspaper he'd like a subscription to, and I'm having a great time playing with my iPad. And of course I'm basking in the jealousy of everyone who wants one!
Adam convinced me to make a nontraditional Christmas dinner this year, but I still wanted the traditional sides, so it was a bit of an odd combination. We ended up with steak, twice baked potatoes, cheesy biscuits, green bean casserole, and noodles. And given my love of making pies, we've decided to make a pie for dessert be one of our traditions (or I have, anyway!) so we had a chocolate cream pie. I think that was Abby's favorite part of the day - she sang songs about chocolate pie all evening. By dessert time, though, Nora was too tired to enjoy her pie and refused to even try it. Poor little girl - she doesn't know what she's missing!
Our White Christmas
Christmas Tree - Christmas Morning
