Christmas

It's not too late to do my Christmas post...is it? :)

Christmas this year was SO fun! Emma was a blast and made me very excited about it.

So our Christmas starts on Christmas Eve. We go to my moms house and spend the morning with our family on that side. After my moms we head to Tim's mom's for Christmas eve and have ham dinner. Both places were great!

Then we headed home on Christmas eve and Emma fell asleep in the car. So...we didn't get to do 'The Night Before Christmas' or leave cookies for Santa or anything like that. That's okay. Santa came and here we are on Christmas morning. Emma normally wakes up around 8:00 or so in the morning...but Christmas morning she woke up at 7:30! I heard her get up and popped out of bed and ran downstairs to see her reaction to the tree. It was so cute, she was half asleep still and looked at the tree. She paced back and forth in front of it about 6 times staring at it before I said something to her. I said, "Emma, who came last night?"...and she just stared at me. So I had to remind her that Santa came, etc....and boy did she get excited! She saw that her stocking was stuffed and a little mouse was peeking out the top at her. She HAD to check it out. BUT...being the horrible mother I am, I made her go up and get daddy out of bed. Luckily daddy didn't take too long getting ready and we got to check out the stocking. Emma LOVED every bit of it. After the stocking daddy needed coffee....so, poor Emma, had to sit and stare at her presents while we waited for the coffee.

FINALLY, Emma got the okay to dig in and boy did she! She had a blast Christmas morning and Tim and I had a blast watching her.

Here are a few photos from Christmas morning :)

Miss Sassy Pants

The aftermath...

One of her favorite gifts

This is what she asked Santa for--a "push and popper"...here she is testing it out :)

Pure joy

Emma and the tree :)

Santa came!!

Here are a few pictures from Mooma's house on Christmas eve

and here are some pictures from Gram's house Christmas even morning

Emma and Jack playing under the table

Aunt B got Emma her first Fancy Nancy book and doll!

The aftermath...

Gram has an electric train that is a hit with the kids

So there you have it...a quick recap of Christmas 2010. I can't even believe this time next year there will be a 7 month old baby Molly in the mix. I seriously can't wait!

One thing I will be focusing MORE on next year will be Jesus' birthday. We talked about it this year...but I would be embarrassed to say what the Jesus to Santa ratio as far as talking about it would be. I guess I talked up Santa a lot to Emma since the last two years she wanted NOTHING to do with him...and the fact that she sat on his lap this year and I got the Santa/kid picture I have always wanted was just icing on the cake. BUT not next year. Yeah, we will talk about Santa and play into some of the commercial part of Christmas, but our focus and the majority of our talk will be about our Savior being born! Jesus' birthday and why He came to the world!

Merry Christmas everyone!

Here's to a wonderful 2011....