our christmas story

I figured a week late to post about Christmas is not too bad right? This year it was going to be a bit different.  Normally after Derek's on Christmas eve we spend the  night at my families and do Christmas morning there but they were in Argentina

We started out our Christmas fun on Christmas Eve by going to Dereks sister Nikki's house for dinner and fun.  I forgot my camera to this event, but know there was lots of food.  And a ton of gifts for the little ones!  Jackie got her pillow pet she has been dying to have.  Life was good. 
After that we  came home for the girls to open the jammies.  Abby was a bit tired 

 Jackie was just excited they were PJ's my kiddo loves clothes

 An attempt at a picture........

 and another

 Poor Abby just wanted to go to sleep

 Jackie on the other hand was excited

 she decided a somersault was in order
 I love this picture haha it makes me laugh

Then we put Abby to sleep showed Jackie the Nativity had our talk on why we were having christmas, left the cookies and milk for Santa and celery for reindeer.

Then it was time for us to play santa.  Luckily i had got all the wrapping done so it was just a matter of setting out the rest of the gifts and putting the santa stuff together.

Here's what Santa left for the girls! Jackie got on Art Easel and some new steps and lots of chap stick in her stocking! And most important the Wild Things Book (where the wild things are) But he hid it on the other side wrapped just to be mean :)

Abby got a rocking plane (a great score from KSL!) and a shopping cart.  She got a book to the very hungry catepaillar

 When the Jackie woke up she was so good and came and got us first just like i had asked her too! :) We got abby up and went out to see what Santa had left.  All she cared about was finding her dang book :) Derek had to show her where to look and she was SO happy!

she loved all the candy :)











Then i decided to do the same mean thing my dads family did to me on Christmas after Santa gifts we had a nice breakfast before we moved on to the other gifts.

 Here they are eating

so silly












We then moved on to the normal gifts.  At my dads house we always opened gifts in a very organized fashion which I LOVE! i hate the free for all! So we separate the gifts by the giver.  So you make a pile of all the gifts you are giving then take turns giving gifts.  This way the focus is more on giving and you get to see everyone open all their gifts.  So this is one tradition i wanted to do in our family.  Luckily for me Derek really likes it too!

So its what we did.  Jackie did great with it and was pretty good at the wait to open her gifts.  I figure since its all they have known as they grow older it will work out great!

 Since it was just us this Christmas I decided to cook up a bunch of dips and snacks to eat during the day and then we had Chili for dinner.  Derek had to go into work for a bit.  So after that me and the girls just played around and had fun with all the new toys.

This year i did a ton of research on toys.  I did not want to get my kiddos gifts they were just going to discard after a week.  So hopefully the the advise from many mommy blogs and baby cheapskates (you should look them up on FB they have list of toys that get played with for a year or more.  Its pretty sweet) so we will see if they do in fact still play with their toys down the road.

It was a pretty great Christmas.  I bit weird not seeing any fam on Christmas day but kinda nice to do our own thing :)