Christmas As Promised

I promised Christmas and Christmas I shall deliver. It was a great year! Ava Grace totally got it and because she does, Annabelle acts like she does and Adalyn, well she is just cute.

But this year, we were with my family on the Lake. Neno and I took the girls on Thursday night after dinner. We were PACKED (not an inch remained) in the car with all the presents and kids. But they were sleepy and didn't care. Plus, we were just excited to be on our way!!

We slept late and just hung out Friday with Mom and Dad. It was nice to not have to rush or drive with any traffic.

The rest of my family was going to be at their own homes until after Christmas morning (they only live an hour from Mom/Dad - much easier for them to do that). We, on the other hand, asked Santa to come to Nana & PawPaw's house to leave our presents.

The girls made sugar cookies and since Nana was out of chocolate syrup, we use hot cocoa mix to jazz up Santa's milk. Ava Grace was convinced he would love it!!

She even put food in the yard for the reindeer! Have you ever seen a more excited 5 year old. Her smile says it all!

He must have loved that we took care of him and his reindeer, because we all made out like bandits. Santa was good to us!!

After all of the excitement of the morning, things just got better when the cousins arrived. The kids were all soooooo excited to see each other - who cares about gifts. They didn't need them. They ran and played and hid and wore themselves out. I loved watching every minute of it!!!

I knew the weekend would fly by so I decided to stay the week with the girls and Neno flew back for work. We were invited into Austin to stay and play with Molly, Emma Beth and Marlee. We also made a date to ice-skate with Mel, Keelie and Westin. Ava Grace had been asking to do this and her cousins were so sweet to let her pick the activity. We were all a little skeptical about how the kids would do, but they did great, I think Molly and I were more concerned about whether or not we would spend the day on our rears. We did not. We had so much fun!! (Molly and Mel took pictures on their phones, but I have yet to get a copy)

Ava Grace and the girls could not get enough of each other. Brandon and Molly were so sweet to let us stay so that they could soak up as much of each other as possible.