Merry Christmas...A Little Late

Okay, here we go! Forgive me for the gigantically long post but I really wanted to get all these pictures up for posterity's sake. :) As I looked through all these pictures I realized that one of the reasons I love blogging is to preserve our memories. I have been having a hard time remembering what we did and this was only two weeks ago!

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So first up is Christmas Eve. My Aunt Karen was able to fly up from Texas for Christmas...we were so happy to have her here to spend the holidays! We spent Christmas Eve morning in town shopping...just for fun...with her and my cousin Sean. It was funny to see the people who were not shopping for fun. :)

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We watched a Christmas movie during K's naptime while I worked on the blanket that I am making for Baby S. Noni and Popi were slaving away in the kitchen most of the afternoon and prepared us a huge array of fun appetizers which were delicious!

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K and I then frosted the birthday cupcakes for baby Jesus that we had made earlier. She did a great job with only one mishap with the sprinkles. It had little holes in the lid so I just handed it to her and told her to put some on. Apparently the holes were a LOT bigger than the sprinkles because she pretty much poured out half the bottle in the time it took my brain to process what was going on and grab the container. That cupcake was the special one for baby Jesus. :)

Then we had the traditional reading of the Christmas story, in Luke 2, in front of the tree. K fell on her way over to my lap so we had to stem the tears before we could get started.

After K went to bed we filled all the stockings (we focused on the St. Nicholas story about the girl's stockings and how we can put them out to remind us of his love of God and his desire to help people) and put out last minute presents.

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In the morning we all got up at about 8 and headed out to check out the tree!

My parents bought K this little rocking chair and then my mom made adorable coverings for it that match her new quilt for her big girl room. I LOVE it! It is such a sweet little chair!

And of course, K loves it too! "Just my size!"

Then it was time to light the candles and sing Happy Birthday to Jesus.

We explained to her that we give each other gifts to remind us of the most special gift...that God sent His one and only Son to us on Christmas so that we could spend eternity with Him!

She took her Elf duties seriously! :)

Auntie Nina made K this adorable apron to go with a play tea set. As you can see, K was delighted! It's hard to tell but it has cupcakes on the pocket...one of K's favorite things!

My mom got the girls these matching dresses and tights...so cute!

My mom also gave Sean a t-shirt quilt made out of a bunch of special t-shirts from his childhood. K thought it was a hammock just for her and coerced Sean and Karen into swinging her for quite some time. I guess you can't really tell, but she's in the middle of the blanket.
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Kisses for a new bear from Bob and Barbara! She's also wearing her new shoes from Mama. They were one of the first things she opened and she sat down and put them on and didn't take them off for hours. :)

We splurged and let her have one of Jesus' birthday cupcakes before breakfast. She was in seventh heaven. :)

I'll leave you with this sweet picture of her and Papa checking out her new computer game.

Thank you so much for all the wonderful gifts everyone! We really are very spoiled.

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I'll keep organizing pictures and get the rest of them up here soon.

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P.S. I almost forgot...I am making what my doctor said is "slow progress" and went from being dilated 1 1/2 centimeters to 2 1/2. I don't care how slow that is...at least we are making progress! And like I told T, every 1/2 centimeter I dilate now is one less that I don't have to go through when in labor. :) The doctor isn't expecting anything anytime soon, but we are getting closer!