Big, Long, Christmas Recap

Our holiday has been so enjoyable. Christmas Eve flew by. We decided to go to 4PM mass. We had to start getting ready at 2 so that we could leave no later than 2:45. The kids looked so cute

We got there an hour early and still found ourselves banished to the basement service. The Church was full, the Chapel was full, and we just barely found seats downstairs. It's insane (and sad) to see how many people come to mass on the holidays. What about the other 51 Sundays in the year? We missed the festive music and all around warm fuzzy feeling we usually get at Church but we were there and both kids made it through the hour service with flying colors.

Our tradition at Christmastime is to have a Cajun feast on Christmas Day. Because we planned to have dinner with the Heller's, we moved our Cajun dinner to Christmas Eve. See all of those shrimp? There were less than 10 left when dinner was over. Kevin and I can tear up some shrimp!

After dinner Reese & Kevin went outside to sprinkle some food for the reindeer.

Then it was time to make Santa his plate of food. Reese also left him a letter. Reese asked for both a bike and a Razor scooter for Christmas. Santa left Reese a letter last week letting her know that his elves are working overtime and they just can't give every kid everything they ask for. This way, when Reese woke up Christmas morning she wouldn't be disappointed to find only one or the other and not both. Her birthday is in March so I think it would make sense to spread it out a bit.....one for Christmas, one for her birthday. Well, Daddy put in a last minute phone call to old St. Nick and asked him to reconsider and to think about bringing both for the "wow factor". I argued my point once again but Santa made an executive decision and brought both.

Talan made out well also:

We woke Reese up at 6:45 to come downstairs (we are always too excited to sleep and end up awake before she is). She was thrilled!

We were able to spend an hour, just the three of us, opening gifts and hanging out while Talan slept. Reese was so excited to give us the gift she made at school. I cried a river when I opened it. Finally Talan decided to join us: We spent all morning and most of the afternoon in our PJs checking out all of the loot. It was a perfect day. It's hard to believe that last year at this time, Talan was still in my belly. At 3PM, we packed up and headed over to the Heller's house to have dinner with family. It made for the perfect ending to a perfect Christmas day. Speaking of perfect, look at the shot Eric captured using his tripod. I can't believe even Talan turned his head and smiled at the camera with no one behind it to coax him. The only thing missing is sweet Julia who was sleeping at the time. It started to snow yesterday and hasn't let up all morning. It's BEAUTIFUL out and the snow is so light and fluffy. While Talan napped, we took advantage of some free time and went out to play in it.

In some ways I'm relieved that the holiday hoopla has passed but it was so much fun that I am already looking forward to next year.