Her face when she opened the early gift from her Grammie was so cute, she was so excited.
We had a wonderful Christmas Eve and Christmas together as a little family of 3, and with the rest of our family. It was Evie’s first Christmas, and it made the day all the more fun for us.
On Christmas Eve we went to one of the services at our friend’s church. The music was wonderful, and the message shared was a great way to help us focus on the real reason for the season. Evie loved getting to hang out with all the other young children in their “Movers” room, we had arrived there early and she was sad until she got to go into the room. She knew where shew as wanting to go when we arrived there. Jason had to work, so we rushed home after so that he good get all set up for that. My mom and sister came over in the evening and we watched two of The Santa Claus movies. Of course there was some gift opening in between. Evie was surprised with a little mini piano that she can carry with her. Her face in the photo says it all when she saw what was behind the wrapping paper. I also got a couple dozen sugar cookies made to take for dessert at Christmas dinner the next day.
Mommy wanted a photo of her baby girl in front of the tree.
Soon it was time for bed, but just before that I made sure to get a photo of her in front of the tree taken. I read Evie a few special Christmas stories and then tucked her in for the night. I needed to work on her Christmas gift, a little wooden rocking horse that I was painting just for her. I still had a lot of work to do on it, and was still working on it come midnight. This was also when Jason was done work, he suggested that we open our stockings then.
Surprises in stockings.
We had decided to do just stockings for each other this year, as we were having no luck finding the odd thing we did want/need. We agreed that we could check out boxing day sales, and see if anything shows up in the new year. Even with that I was given a beautiful gift tucked in the foot of my stocking. I guess you could say its a belated “push present” and a special Christmas gift. Jason is hard to shop for, we are still looking for his special item(s). If you need an idea of how hard it is to shop for him, we have been looking for new couches since we got married, this coming June marks 4 years as a married couple. He researches everything like crazy, and basically researches against items he even really likes. So the hunt continues for him! *update: we found a pillow, yes he wanted a pillow for Christmas*
I worked on her horse into the wee-hours of the morning. Just when I was about to head to bed I heard some cries from my little lovie over the baby monitor. I ended up getting Christmas morning cuddles from 1:30am until 3:30am. She did not want me to put her down in the crib. I ended up falling asleep in the chair holding her for a bit. I didn’t mind because I cherish those cuddles. Soon enough she did let me put her back down, and she went to sleep in her crib.
She went right for her rocking horse.
Christmas morning was so much fun! It was like Evie could sense the excitement in the air. She woke up a very happy girl. When we took her downstairs her eyes just filled with wonder, and sparkle. I will always remember that look she had. She went right for the little rocking horse, and tried to climb onto it. Let me know that all the work was worth it. We opened her stocking with her, and also the couple of other gifts she had under the tree. We even fit in a Skpe session with her grandparents in Kelowna, they got to watch her open the gifts from them. We managed get her to have both her morning and afternoon naps, before packing her into the car to head over to my relatives home for Christmas dinner.
Last Christmas I was a pregnant past my due-date grump at Christmas dinner, I just sat in one chair the whole night. I was so done with being pregnant by then. This time it was different. Having a child and seeing everything so special and new through their eyes is so much fun. Evie was given a few more gifts that she got to open through out the night. She loved all of the attention that was on her all evening. The turkey dinner was of course delicious. Evie sat in her high chair and enjoyed her meal, trying everything. Her favourite though was the carrots. She probably ate a whole carrots worth. She ate her own portion, she ate more from my plate, she ate more from her dad’s plate. The big treat though was we let her try a Christmas cookie, she didn’t eat the whole thing, she took 3 good bites and was done. We wrapped up the evening with her getting to enjoy trying to play the drums while siting with her cousin. She has two cousins who are very talented at drumming so we know who we will go to if she ever wants to learn.
Quickly bed time came and went past, we got our little lovie changed into her reindeer pajamas and loaded into the car. All tuckered out from a day full of fun, and lots of love heaped upon her. She fell asleep almost instantly when put into her car seat. For the first time ever I got her out of the car seat still asleep when we arrived home. Signs of a exhausted child with visions of sugar plums dancing in her head. I woke her a bit to have some a bottle, and tucked her in to bed for the night. She blessed us with a good long sleep, and didn’t get up until 8am on boxing day.
I hope you all had an incredibly wonderful Christmas spent with the ones you love. We sure enjoyed our first Christmas with our daughter. We are already looking forward to next year, and seeing what Evie will be like then. Children make the holidays so special.
Family dinner get-together. She loved the meal, and put her snowman sippy cup to good use.