Christmas Part 2

*Reader's Advisory - this is going to be a LONG post with LOTS of pictures*

After a few days of "rest" and nothing major to do, it was time for Christmas Part 2! It all began on Christmas Eve as I busily cooked and baked food for the Christmas meal we would be hosting at our house the following day. Thank goodness Steve was home that day because I would not have been able to get everything done without him entertaining Charlotte. On the menu - honey baked ham, mashed potatoes, macaroni and cheese (for which I was using a new recipe I found in Family Circle magazine), corn pudding (which my Mom was making) and green beans. The main things I was making the day before were actually the desserts - banana pudding and chocolate peanut butter bars (also a new, and very involved, recipe from Family Circle).

Of course Charlotte had many holiday themed outfits, so we had to start wearing them days before Santa's arrival so we could get some cute pictures. Here are a few of her in her new rocking chair.

We didn't do a whole lot of Christmas Eve preparations in regards to Santa this year - no cookies and milk, no note, etc. We figured we would wait until next year to really "go all out" with everything since this year Charlotte really doesn't know the difference between one day and the next! It will probably be our easiest Christmas as parents and we decided to take advantage of it. We did set out the gifts that we/Santa got for her in front of the fireplace under the stockings so she would see them first thing when we came downstairs in the morning.

Fast forward to Christmas morning...

Charlotte woke up as usual around 6:45, ate and then we all got showered and dressed to go downstairs. We sat her down in front of her stack of presents.






She got a little bit fussy, so we took a break to have fruit and oatmeal (yum!), then it was back to the action. We had some gifts from out of town friends to open so we got to it! The Fetsch's gift would be Charlotte's first experience with tearing wrapping paper (or watching her parents tear wrapping paper).

Here we go!

I don't think I like this Mommy!

My Ethan is in the box...oh wait, it is just his super cute picture!

I love my blankie (even though this face may not say so)


We were also super excited to get another volume in the "Don't let the Pigeon..." series from the Fetsch's as well. We love those Pigeon books! Our friend Jack sent us this super cool popper that we can't wait to try.



Ted, Anne and Lola sent Charlotte the sing along stage which was put together later in the day so we'll have to get pictures of Charlotte rocking out on her microphone a little later! Thanks so much guys!!

Steve and I decided that to avoid even more chaos we would exchange our presents after Charlotte was in bed, but I did want him to open his special gift from Charlotte. I had taken her to Color Me Mine a few weeks earlier to create this special project!



While Charlotte was napping and in between cooking and cleaning up for our guests, we decided to put together the Crawl and Cruise Musical Jungle. Peyton wanted to get in on the action...



Around middle of the day our guests began to arrive- Steve's Mom, my parents and my brother Bill and his family. We commenced with helping Charlotte open the new pile of gifts that had just arrived from the grandparents, after a brief chat with "Santa" of course!



Here are a few shots of all the great things that Charlotte received on her very first Christmas!





Phew...i'm running out of things to write, so just going to post a few more pics of the day!






Oh...Christmas wouldn't be complete without an appearance from the latest Elmo! Nana and Grandaddy brought Charlotte her very first Elmo. He is actually pretty cool. Charlotte didn't quite know what to think.



Overall Charlotte's first Christmas was a great one! We have a house full of toys and Charlotte is very blessed to have such wonderful and generous grandparents, uncles,aunts and cousins! We are looking forward to teaching Charlotte more and more about both the true meaning of Christmas as well as all of the fun Santa traditions in the years to come. I will leave you with a cute picture of Charlotte in yet another holiday outfit.