A Christmas of Our Own

Christmas was a tiny bit different this year. Growing families have made some changes in tradition necessary. My family has always had a big Christmas breakfast on Christmas Day, after we open our presents. But this year, my parents had a talk and they decided it was time for them to step aside and let us start our own traditions with our own families. (We still had our big Christmas breakfast together, of course, we just did it on a different day!) So, after going to our church's Christmas Eve service together, our little family of four came home to spend Christmas Eve and Christmas morning, just us. While it's a little sad to change the way it's always been, it's fun to be the Mom now, making Christmas special for my own family. And it was nice not to have more places to be than I can be in at once!

Getting cookies and milk ready for Santa. (Thanks to Gaga for the cookies. I played the "new baby" card and didn't bake anything this year! Good thing there were some leftover from our Mehok Christmas the day before.)

So excited!

Reading "The Night Before Christmas" on the night before Christmas!

Santa was good to Julia!

And he "gathered" a few things for Jenna, too!

Nice vacuum! When will she be old enough to push a real one?

Guess who suggested the tool bench to Santa? Julia is super interested in tools after seeing Papa and Daddy do all the work in the basement.

What?! The cookies are gone! The milk is gone!

Julia loves her play tent! Perfect addition to her playroom in the basement.

Playing Mickey Mouse Clubhouse with Daddy.

She loved digging in her stocking!

I get everyone a personalized ornament each year. This year, Julia's is a girl with pigtails holding a swaddled baby and it says, "Big Sister Julia"

John's has three black bears on it, one with each of our names, and it says, "Smoky Mountains" at the bottom, because our family trip this year was to the Smoky Mountains in Tennessee.

I got Jenna one, too, of course, although I forgot to take a pic. Hers is a baby in a stocking and says Jenna Hope.

Jenna spent the morning sleeping in her swing, but I thought it was cute that Julia kept bringing her things from her Christmas pile and stacking them there.