Merry (late) Christmas!

Where to begin? I have always loved Christmas and it was even more special this year with Jake. Even though he didn't "get" it, it was still amazing to experience our first holiday season with him.

Christmas Eve was nice and relaxing during the day and we did some traditional activities (see previous post for 2 of these activities), such as setting out cookies and milk, writing a letter to Santa and having daddy read "Twas the Night Before Christmas".

Please note how Gracie snuck her own request onto the note for Santa. After all of that, it was time to get to work on bringing out the presents. Here is the end result...Jake must have been a VERY good boy!

After FINALLY falling asleep that night (yes, I'm still like a little kid who can't sleep on Christmas Eve!), it was morning!! Brian's family eats breakfast before opening gifts, which is quite different from my family, whose idea of breakfast on Christmas is shoving some cookies in our mouths partway through opening gifts. I found the idea of having to eat first to be some type of terrible torture and seemed like cruel and unusual punishment. But the good news was, we got to do stockings while eating, so that made it a bit better.

Then, it was finally time for the main event!!! While he wasn't quite sure what to do with all of the gifts and wrapping paper (aside from eating it), Jake LOVED the bows on the gifts. In fact, he spent a lot of time that morning carefully taking the bow off of one gift and very gently placing it on another gift. Super cute. He got a great assortment of gifts....toys, a sled, puzzles, books, PJ's, clothes, etc...

Here he is opening his first gift of the day, then showing off some of the other stuff that he got (no, the Miller Lite was not one of his gifts...that was one of daddy's gifts)

I had been curious all week as to what the present under the tree for me labeled "to cookie monster" could possibly be....I got my answer that morning.

Oh yes, my friends...it was The Cookie Bible. Everything in it looks delicious...now who wants to bake the stuff in it for me?? I'm happy to do all of the sampling of your work. Ironically, I also received "The Biggest Loser Families Cookbook" from Brian....any gift that is prefaced with "This isn't meant to be offensive" before opening is always interesting. But it was a good gift, he bought it because the recipes are supposed to be both healthy (duh) and easy (a necessity for me).

And don't worry, Gracie got spoiled too. Treats, bones, toys....the works. she has this thing that she seems to think ALL presents are for her...therefore, she was running around that morning from person to person, assuming that gift was for her. At one point, she actually tunneled her way through a stack of gifts, turned around under the tree, then sat amongst the unopened presents, probably hoping they were all for her.

After morning nap time, we headed over to Brian's aunt & uncle's house, where we stuffed ourselves with delicious food AND got to meet the new baby of the family, Gwen! Here are all of the ladies (plus Jake):

We hope that everyone had a very Merry Christmas & a safe and happy new year!! :)