Christmas Morning 2010

Happy Birthday Jesus! We spent a lot of time leading up to Christmas day talking about the birth story of Jesus. HC struggled with remembering Mary's name, I'm not real sure why. We would set up the Little People nativity piece by piece and discuss who they were and what they meant in the story. Once they were all in place Hannah Claire would look around real sneaky like, grin and ask if should could knock them all down. Anything to keep it fun I guess.

When HC woke up we whisked her into our room and closed the door until Mawmaw and Pawpaw were downstairs and Shane had the camera ready. She was very excited to see what all of the excitement was in the living room but she was a little unsure of what Santa had been up to in our house.

She checked out all of the goodies around the bottom of the tree and just took it all in.

Once she checked it all out, she was ready to get to playing. I mean Ernie needed a ride in her new suitcase first thing. It's funny that she was pretty excited about Ernie at first but she wanted no part of him in her room when it came to bedtime. I guess he is pretty creepy at night.

Hannah Claire really enjoyed tearing into the gifts. We will need to work on her aggressiveness though. She had to have every single piece of paper off of the gift before she would even look at what it was. Needless to say it extended our gift opening quite a bit. At least we were able to enjoy each gift.

Miss sassy pants always has that little mind going. Who knows what she is considering at this point. Thankfully she is not too mischievous!

Sometimes opening gifts can be hard work for a two year old, especially when the gift is as big as you are.

Since HC is so meticulous at opening gifts she thought she would lend a helping hand to Mawmaw & Pawpaw. Well, either that or she just wanted to wheel around their new luggage.

I'm not sure when kids get to the stage of tearing open all the gifts as fast as they can and then come back later to see what they got, but that was not the case this year. HC took time to stop and check out each gift. She was very excited about new books (a girl after her mommy's heart).

We saved the stockings for last. Now this kid is not playing when it comes to the stocking. She has mastered the art of dumping. It really is a great technique, as long as nothing is breakable. If you notice Santa hooked HC up with her very first Pez dispenser. I was so excited because he used to always give me one in my stocking when I was a kid. I love even the smallest traditions! Being pregnant and somewhat hormonal made me extra sentimental this year.

As I said the dumping method works great unless there is something breakable. The poor Cinderella ornament was broken at her waist. I hope Santa has learned his about putting breakables in the stocking.

A nice Christmas morning in front of the fire while it was snowing outside! What a beautiful day!

HC got her loving in before Mawmaw & Pawpaw had to leave. (Notice the kid eating all of mommy's sour Life Savers. That's right, I got one! I'm surprised she didn't get sick because it was a big box.)

HC tried on her new hat and mittens and proceeded to break it down with the Disney Christmas parade.

After a lazy Christmas morning we had to pack to head up to Florence. HC immediately started packing her new suitcase. Needless to say I had to pack a few more needed things.

We did get a beautiful picture of our backyard before we left. With all of that beautiful snow, we didn't even get to play in it. That's okay, there was too much to do on such an important day.