Scenes from Christmas Day

Christmas Day was just too much fun this year! I was wide awake at 5:50 AM just waiting for Emerson to wake up. I couldn't wait for her to come downstairs and see what Santa brought her.

Of course, she slept in that morning so the wait seemed so long! But she finally woke up around 8:00 and came down to a fun surprise. She loved everything but her favorite, by far, was her Princess Cozy Coupe.

After she played with her Santa toys for a while, we let her start opening her gifts from us. We tried to keep it simple this year since we will be packing up for our move very soon. Even so, it took a long while for E to finish opening all of her present. She was just so excited about that car and her baby doll! Plus she wanted to open every toy and play with it before moving onto the next present.

 She loves her little kitty! Thank you Gigi!

This picture is one of my absolute favorites from the day. E is obsessed with the Duck and Goose books so I decided to get her the little stuffed animals from Amazon. After she ripped off the wrapping paper Jesse opened the box and let her peak in before shutting it back quickly. The look on her face is just priceless.

And once she had Duck and Goose in her arms, she was NOT putting them down.

After we finished opening presents, we did some more food prep and then E and I headed upstairs to get ready for the day. While I was in the bathroom putting on makeup I let her play in her room, which is right by the bathroom. She was happily playing when I heard a thud and then Emerson screaming at the top of her lungs. I walked in to find her face down on the carpet right in front of her ottoman. It only took me a minute to figure out that she had been jumping on the ottoman and had fallen off right on her face. Poor baby! Luckily she was fine but she got terrible carpet burn on her forehead and nose just in time for Christmas pictures! 

We finished prepping all of the food and the Marines arrived around 1:00 for lunch. Since we usually stick to traditional food for Thanksgiving we like to mix it up on Christmas. The last two years we have done brisket. In the previous years we did Italian and seafood. This year we decided to go with a little Mexican fiesta. We made fajitas, enchilada casserole, guacamole, salsa, queso, and seven layer dip.

It was SO good! Jesse smoked the fajita meat so it tasted just like Rosa's (you Texans should know what I'm talking about!) All we were missing was the homemade tortillas!

We also made two batches of spicy red sangria and white wine sangria. It went a little faster than we expected- we should have known with 8 Marines in the house that it wouldn't last long. We will definitely be making it again! Yum!

While we were eating I looked over and saw Emerson with her head in one hand and her fork in the other. I think our sweet girl was worn out from all of the excitement!

We let her play for a little bit before getting in a few family pictures.

 We could tell that she was ready for a nap...

 But we finally got a few good ones:

Once she was down we played some board games. I don't think I have ever laughed so hard in my life!  Unfortunately we were so busy playing, I didn't take any pictures!! Fail!

Once E was awake the first thing she wanted to do was play. She headed directly to her car and hopped right inside, with her baby, of course!

We spent the rest of the evening outside. Emerson rode her YBike and we watched the neighborhood kids playing with their new toys and riding their new bikes. It was so much fun to see everyone outside enjoying the beautiful weather- and I think everyone had quite the Christmas spirit even if it was 80 degrees!

There were so many awesome things about this Christmas. From watching E experience so many new things to cooking all of the yummy food with Jesse- it was all wonderful. But I think the very best part was knowing that this is our last Christmas to spend overseas.  We had so much to celebrate and celebrate we did!