Opening Presents on Christmas Eve

We had a special Christmas Eve this year, where we celebrated over at Mikey's parents house.  It was a full house, with John and Amber, my parents, my brother and 5 dogs!  We had a great meal and opened a lot of presents.  It was a wonderful evening.

Here's Tom on his favorite perch

With Grandma Postlewait - note the elbow patches on his fancy Christmas sweater

With Mom

And one with Uncle John

Beautiful tree with lots of presents

Two sweet girls by the tree

The best picture of the two of them I could get

Tommy was ready to roll

Let me at 'em

He got a great talking dog that he liked

Grandma and Grandpa trying to figure out what was in the secret box....

An iPad!

Wowee - 7 Princess Dolls?!

And a Princess Dress of course!

More time on the stairs.  He sat there during most of the time while we opened presents.

Cuddling with Papa

Showing Amber how to put her dolls to sleep

Wrestling with Sadie

I love this shot - he is leaning on his knee, checking out his little books

Good one of me and Uncle John, don't believe your eyes, it took 15 takes to get it.

Sweet boy.

A Ton of Christmas Fun

We had a pretty incredible Christmas (and took a lot of pictures along the way).  This is the first in a series of posts to show all of our fun.  This was the first year for Ellie to really "get" Christmas, which made it extra special for all of us.  She helped move the candy cane every morning on the Advent calendar, searched for "Chippy" our Elf on the Shelf, made a lot of Christmas crafts and treats.  She had some wishes for Santa Claus - 1) a vacuum 2) a Jeep 3) a dollhouse and 4) a broom for me and her father.  She got more and more excited as the days approached, and we had some great activities along the way.

The first was a trip to the Nutcracker ballet at the Kauffman Center for Performing Arts.  Ellie, Grandma Postlewait, Ruthie and I all went on a beautiful day.  My thought was that she would make it through 15 minutes of the performance, but she really was in awe of the dancing and ended up making it through the whole thing (although she was getting very antsy at the end).  She loved the story, and had quite a fun day getting dressed up and spending time with "ladies".  She asked me the next day when she could go back and see it again!

Gazing out the window, note the puffy skirt of her dress

Posing with Mom before we went in

We got to take pictures with the dancers

With Grandma and Ruthie before the show began.  We had great seats!

Spreading the Christmas Cheer

We have been busy prepping for Christmas at our house.  Check out some of the fun activities!!

Stringing up the lights outside

Lending Dad a hand

Tommy checking out the Crayola store at Crown Center

Papa took us for a carriage ride on the Plaza

Posing with Tom

Our horse's name was Dan, and he was sweet.

It was a great ride!

Making a gingerbread house...in her Easter dress, naturally.

A cute guy in his Christmas pjs with his two buddies.

Ellie's Class Party - iced sugar cookies and general chaos.