First Christmas

There's something special about being a mom on Christmas. Last year I put Evie on the naughty list for being 5 days late:

This year, I got to watch her gleefully tear at the wrapping paper and excitedly hold up her gifts. Even clothes got the Evie smile of approval.

I didn't know quite what to expect for our first Christmas as a family of three. I knew that Evie would get overtired (so very overtired) and she'd probably be overwhelmed by the people and stuff surrounding her as well as the bunches of places we'd go (having come from a divorced family, we have to go to different houses for Christmas). She handled it all really well, though.
Christmas Eve we went to my grandma and grandpa's house to do our traditional Mom's Family Christmas. Evie got to open her first gifts from us and my family. She proudly held up every item she unwrapped and gave us big smiles of appreciation. I couldn't believe how excited she was about clothes. We ate dinner and instead of going to midnight mass, we just headed back to our house to snuggle in and play with a few of her new toys before passing out. It was a long, hot day, but we had a lot of fun. Evie did end up being pretty cranky by the time we got home and slept really well all night.

SELFIE!!!

Christmas morning we slept in. Normally we would do breakfast at my dad's house but this year he invited us to Christmas dinner. We spent the morning in bed talking to Gavin's parents and being lazy. When we finally got up, we gave Evie her last gift from us and then we got ready to go to my dad's house because there wasn't much to do at home.
At my dad's we saw a slow trickle of family members come in as we opened our gifts. Evelyn got a lot of really neat toys and spent most of the day playing with her new dollhouse. My dad made her a little table, too, which she ate Christmas dinner on with me and Gavin.
My sister got a photographer's setup, complete with the umbrella light diffusers and a backdrop, so we tried to get some photos in. I have to admit, I was not feeling taking a bunch of pictures this holiday, so this was a good call on our part so we'd have something to look back on!

So beautiful :)

I DONT WANT TO DO A FAMILY PORTRAIT

Some did not turn out so well. Forgive me, Evie, you were not being tortured, despite what it looks like in the photo above. 

After dinner we hung out a little while longer, but Evie hadn't taken a nap all day and was desperately needing one so we headed home. She passed out in the car and slept through the transfer to the bed.

Gavin and I took the opportunity to clean house, take down the tree, decorations and lights and put away all her new toys. Call me a grinch, but I did the same thing last year while waiting for Evie to arrive and it made me feel so much better not to have to take it down after she finally did come out. Now our house is tidy and ready for her first birthday in SIX DAYS!!!