Merry Christmas

Friday, Christmas Eve, started out with family portraits by Hannah Hough Photography.  Bruce does not like getting his picture taken and told me I might just ruin Christmas with this picture taking! :)  Everyone survived the pictures and as always when we get them  back they will be thrilled we did it.  We came back to the house to finish wrapping up gifts and let Eli take a nap.  While Lillian and I were wrapping Bruce asked her about the true meaning of Christmas and why we give gifts.  She answered and then said, "If Christmas is about baby Jesus why aren't we at church?"  I loved that!  I told her we would be going to church that evening.

Here are three of our four princesses.  Snow White, aka Emma is MIA.

We had a wonderful lunch with Bruce's family.  It was so wonderful because the adults ate while the children napped!  I can't remember the last time we had a nice meal together like that!  Then we played some games, ie guess the number of lights on the tree, ornaments on the tree, JOYs in the house (Bruce's mother's name is Joy and she collects anything with Joy on it.  I believe the final count was 86 JOYs!).  Unfortunately, Michael and I were the only total losers!  Everyone won something but us.  O well there's always next time.

Eli is getting some much needed cuddle time with Aunt Rae.

I really enjoyed the Christmas Eve service and then we returned to the house to open gifts.  The grandkids started out with a scavenger hunt which they LOVED, Lillian has asked multiple times when we can do that again.  Then we opened the gifts under the tree.  Everyone was pleased.  Lillian is SO fun to watch open presents.  Her gift from Emma was wrapped in Mickey Mouse paper and just looking at the paper she says, "I LOVE it, it's just what I always wanted!"  But not only does she get super excited about her own gifts, every gift one of her cousins opened she gasped and said how cute or sweet it was.
Lillian and I slept in the back at Gramma's on an air mattress and at 5am on Christmas morning she cupped my face in her hand and said, "I love you so much.  What was your favorite part of today?"  I said, "Going to church with my family.  What was your favorite part?"  Lillian answered, "Opening presents!" and then she went back to sleep :)
It's been a relaxing Christmas day.  We spent the morning at Bruce's parents.  We had an awesome Christmas lunch, Thank You Joy!  Now we are at home and everyone is sleeping except me.  I'm scared that if I was to lay my head down and get some rest someone would surely wake up.  And it's just not worth it!

Merry Christmas!