Twas The Night Before Christmas

OH MY GOODNESS MOM ~ we have a ton of errands to run this morning.

Eating breakfast at Panera before a little Christmas shopping

It's hard to believe that Christmas has come and gone already. Seems like it was yesterday, when I looked at the calendar in July and thought to myself "Is it Christmas yet?" The weeks leading up to Christmas were extremely busy for us. We had my parents coming in from Arizona as well as Greg's Dad and Stepmom from Illinois, to help us celebrate Hunter's first Christmas.
Not only were we excited about the Grandparents coming to visit, but Hunter also figured out how to get up on his hands and knee's in preparation for crawling. Although, he hasn't totally figured out the process, he's getting really close.

Christmas Eve, cooking,cooking, cooking and more cooking..... then church for an hour and half. ( Really not sure what they were thinking by holding such a long service with little kiddo's present) However, Hunter did amazingly well during the entire service. We had the diaper bag loaded with snacks, juice,books and toys. Along with our plan for a quick removal of a screaming baby. Which I might add, we didn't have to use. After church we came home and started our Christmas traditions as a family. Hunter got to open his "first" gift from Mommy and Daddy. His Christmas Jammies. Then Grandpa Garvey read "The Night Before Christmas" from the same book that he read to Greg as a young child. Pretty cool tradition to keep going.

For almost 10 months old, Hunter figured out the riping of paper pretty quickly. But wasn't sure what to do with the treasure once all the paper was torn off.

Modeling his Christmas Jammies, before heading off to bed so Santa could make his grand entrance.

Twas the Night Before Christmas, and all through the house........ thanks Grandpa Garvey for reading the story to Hunter for the first time. He may not remember the moment, but Mommy and Daddy will always remember that special part of his first Christmas.

Ready or Not Santa is on his way. Greg and I had such a good time playing Santa on Christmas Eve. We placed all the gifts under the tree with such care, rearranged the living room to make sure there would be plenty of room for the coming morning festivities, hung stockings for our parents and filled stockings for the dogs and Hunter, along with leaving cookies and milk for Santa. Playing Santa is alot of work...... Growing up, you never realize how much planning,shopping, sneaking around and late night wrapping went into making Christmas morning so magical. I'm thinking I need to start now for the coming year.

I think Santa liked his cookies. One tradition that I have with my Mom is making sugar cookies (and not just any sugar cookies, but my Aunt Sue's famous cookies) together whenever we are together for Christmas, and this year was no exception. This year we had some special help from Greg's Stepmom Judy. The three of us spent a WHOLE lot of time in the kitchen and it was awesome sharing recipes, traditions and stories. Thanks ladies for making my Holiday so special !!!