Our First Family Christmas

Dan and I typically celebrate our family Christmas a couple of weeks early.  We usually are heading to Colorado at least a week before Christmas Day so that we can spend time with his brother before landing in Wray to be with my family.  It's kind of nice to spread it all out!  This was (obviously) our first year as a family, so we were excited to do Christmas with Evelyn.  She is at such a fun age where everything goes in her mouth - and everything excites her!  If you are reading to your kids/letting your kids read this - stop now. :-)  It was such much fun to play Santa for the first time!  We set everything up on Friday night so that when she woke up Saturday, we could have Christmas.  We've decided the best way to get to let her have Christmas here before we go home, is to tell her that Santa makes a special stop here because he knows she'll be in Colorado.  It's all a big farce anyway, we figure we can make up our own story! :-)

Our little Christmas corner - just after Santa stopped in!

Of all the bells and whistles toys we got for Evelyn...she liked her stocking stuffers the best.

Rubber blocks and plastic cups!

Opening her first gift from Mommy and Daddy...of course she loved the paper and bows!

Yummy!

This was the first time she actually ripped the paper on her own...so cute!

And we're back to the bows...

An ornament her nanny made for her

Reading her card from Mommy

Her favorite new book from Daddy

I got this for Dan and Evelyn...she's not quite big enough for it yet, but it's her first basketball goal!

She also got her jump-a-roo from us...though she's not quite big enough to touch the ground yet!  We ended up putting a phone book down so she could jump away!

And some shots we took that night...everybody loves a cute Santa baby!

Saturday afternoon we were going to go see Santa at the mall.  As soon as we drove into the parking lot, we realized what a terrible idea that was going to be.  So we decided we would try to see Santa in Wray when we are there next week.  After church on Sunday, though, our friends David and Leah called to tell us that Santa was at our HEB (grocery store).  So we headed over there so we could get Evelyn's picture with him.  It was actually perfect...closer to home, no line, and we can take our own pictures so it's free!  Thank you, HEB!  She loved Santa, she was mesmerized by his beard (pulled it a couple of times) and smiled the entire time.  She was just a little apprehensive when Dan handed her off, but got over it within seconds.

Now it's time to get packing for the 18 hour trip to Colorado...oh boy!