Merry Christmas!

I hope that everyone had a wonderful Christmas!  We have had a busy but fun week!  We did a lot of shopping, and had a lot of craft time.  Kennedy enjoyed making cards with her thumb prints, and salt dough ornaments for daddy, and her grandma's.  I made her a felt tree with ornaments to take off and rearrange how ever she wanted.  She played with it a little, but mostly ran around with them.  After all, Kennedy doesn't care much for anything that requires her to be stationary for more than 90 seconds.  I really enjoyed making new traditions with my babies.  And although I haven't been able to teach Kennedy to make animal sounds, I did teach her to say, "Ho ho ho!"  She has walked around saying ho ho ho all week.  And it's the cutest thing ever.  Unfortunately, it seems our new Christmas tradition is for Kennedy to be sick.  Fortunately she was in a great mood, but had snot running down her nose in most photos.  Christmas Eve was busy with last minute errands and baking.  Kennedy had a great time helping me bake and decorate cookies.  She stirred up a bowl of sugar and then tossed it behind her.  We kicked off Christmas morning with cake butter pancakes and got right to work with gifts!  Kennedy was greeted by a new table and chair set on the patio, a kitchen set and a Servin' Surprises Table.  The kitchen was a HUGE hit.  She scored tons of puzzles, Little People sets, dolls, their accessories...the list is endless.  As you'll see from the pictures below, Santa was very good to everyone!  It was an amazing Christmas!  I feel truly blessed to have a wonderful family and such amazing children.  It was so much fun to see their faces light up, and I know Christmas will only get better each year.

In an effort to get this blog post done while Kennedy is napping, I'm going to wrap up with a lot of pictures from the past week.

Yes, I know I'm cute.

I have all the attention on me, before my cousin's performance starts.

Giving brother kisses!

Hi Facebook people!

Baby's First Christmas!

Mom, this coat thing sucks.

This felt tree is cool, but not as cool as the real tree.

I'm ready to bake mama!

How about these sprinkles mom?

Can you put extra in?

"Ho ho ho!  I'm baking!"

It's cool mom, I'll just sit up here.

Can we make cranberry bark next?

Really mom?  I can decorate this?

Oh, you didn't want me to eat it?

This is yummy mom.  More please?

Ho ho ho!  Santa will love this!

Checking for Santa!

Ho ho ho!  Better get the windex mom!

Santa came!!

Baby's First Christmas!

The little chunky monkey!

For me???

Want some coffee dad?

Sure Grandma, I'll pour you a cup.

Who's on the phone?

I'm mixing up some scrambled eggs mom.

Running for the gifts!!!

Diving right in!

 I love it Grandma!

She ran to the door with her new keys and said, "Bye!"

This is cool mom.

My friend Mickey!!!

I love you baby.

Caleb made me this???

Giving "Stitch" kisses.

Weeeeeee go faster Grandma!

Talk about photo overload.  I'm determined that I'll be better about blogging in the new year! 

Kennedy's First Christmas!

I think it's safe to say that Kennedy's first Christmas was wonderful!  Unfortunately, around the time Santa finished dropping off presents, Kennedy also came down with the sniffles.  Christmas Eve was the first night of less than adequate sleep for us.  But, despite her cold, she made the most of Christmas day and had a lot of fun tearing into all the wrapping paper.  However, about 10 presents in, she lost interest in the paper and really just cared about the toys.  Needless to say, mommy and daddy ended up opening quite a few gifts.  I think it's also safe to say, Kennedy is a little spoiled (just in case you hadn't figured this out yet.)  Since she wasn't feeling great, we decided to forgo the Christmas dress and just let her hang out in her pajamas all day.  

I won't put off what you're all waiting for.  Here are some photos from our day.

Santa ate almost all the cookies Kennedy left, as well as most of the milk and coffee.  In exchange, he left a novel and a house full of presents.

This should happen to me EVERY day!!

Kennedy's first instinct while unloading her stocking, was to chew on the tags.

I love this bear mommy!

Am I supposed to eat this mom?

Opening the first gift of many.  There was a lot of paper eating going on in our house yesterday.

I know this is almost as big as me, but I can handle it mom!

I'll eat my way through this paper.

Look Mom!  I got more clothes!

Daddy took lessons in opening from Kennedy.

Hey mom, how come you don't make me bows like this?

I'm pretty sure I could have bought 700 slinkies and she would have been just as happy!

I'm over paper mom, let's play with the toys.

Does this mean I get my own iPhone now?

I love Christmas mommy!

Daddy surprised Kennedy with a special engraved jewelry box.

Mom this one is really big!

Someone bring on dinner. I'm sleepy.

We ended the night watching the Disney parade as a family.  It was a great end to the day, and probably the most TV that Kennedy has watched in her whole life.

Okay, okay.  So I thought that the parade was the end of our day.  But Kennedy had other ideas.  Despite not feeling well, she found the energy to stay up until almost 10pm playing with her new toys.

It was a great day, full of memories and new traditions.  I wish Kennedy had felt better.  She definitely had a good Christmas and lots of fun, but didn't have as many smiles as usual.  I can't help but think about how every Christmas will continue to get better and better as we add traditions and Kennedy grows up.  It's hard to believe that next Christmas we'll have TWO babies.  I think I'm going to have to figure out something different for Santa.  I'm not sure that he'll have room to leave gifts for two kids, in our family room. 

I'm crossing my fingers for a better nights sleep - last night was definitely one of the worst.  Hopefully Kennedy will wake up feeling much better...especially since we have Early Intervention AND a cardiology follow up tomorrow.