Christmas 2010

Every Christmas Eve, my parents have a party with their close friends and kids - these are all the kids that we grew up with, so they are all like family.  This year,  we decided to spend the night so we could enjoy the evening past 7:30pm, and we would all be together in the morning for presents.  Christmas eve was great and so much fun!  We all got dressed up, ate way too much (some drank too much :) ) and just enjoyed the Holiday.  Ashlyn had sooo much fun running around in her cute polk-a-dot dress.  She is becoming quit the social butterfly and was sitting at the "girls" table, playing with her dolls while we all chatted.  She would laugh when we laughed,  show off all her new words (which are a lot), and she just loved being part of the group.  She was running around in her new boots that she got all night, running up to people, pointing and showing off "boots".  Finally, at 8pm I told her it was nite, nite time and she said "ya, ya - nite, nite" and went right to bed.  We enjoyed the rest of the night (until Midnight), with the rest of the group just laughing and having fun.

It was so nice to wake up and already be at my parents house.  Ashlyn woke up at 8am so we all got to sleep in a little (Kelsey wasn't happy to wake up that early but that was late for us)!  We fed Ashlyn breakfast and then off we went to all the presents under the tree.  Ashlyn doesn't quite get the Santa thing yet -- that some guy comes and brings presents, but she sure did get that most of the presents under the tree were for her.  She loved sitting on our laps and opening each one.  She got a lot of Tinkerbell presents which she squealed with joy when she opened.  The biggest hit of the morning was the tunnel/hut that Auntie Kelsey bought her.  We put it right up and she immediately crawled back and forth, back and forth.  Then she started to take all her new dolls and Tink fairies in the hut and made a little playhouse -- it was really so cute.  She had so many presents that we ended up taking some and just throwing them in the car, wrapped.  We are going to give them to her when Baby Boy arrives, or use some as potty presents.  After we opened presents,  we made a huge breakfast and my Mom made her infamous Bloody Marys (of course I had to pass on these but they sure looked good)!  Ashlyn was hungry again and joined us for her second breakfast.  When she napped a Noon, so did the rest of us!  We all lounged around, watched football and relaxed.  My Grandparents came up around 3pm and we had a fabulous Christmas dinner - delicious prime ribe and my Nana's yorkshire puddings (it's an English thing and soooo tasty)!  Ashlyn loved all the food and ate up all hers!  After dinner we packed up and headed home -- we were all ready to sleep in our own beds.  I feel so fortunate to live so close to my parents.  Ashlyn absolutely adores them both and gets so excited when I tell her we're going to see them.