A VERY Merry Christmas!!!

Oh what a Christmas we had!!! This post has a ton of pictures but it was either put them all in one or do several posts, and if you’re reading, chances are you’d read all the posts anyway, so just take a break if it gets too long! :) (I’ll try to keep the talking to a minimum, but since this is a memory keeper for us, I might have lots to say.)

We set out Tuesday evening to head to visit Zach’s family and get our holiday celebrations started. We spent the day on Wednesday with his parents and sister and grandma. Ava got her first taste of opening presents here. She was pretty happy with the chapstick that was in every one’s stocking but hers. (Zach’s grandma always puts incredibly useful things in our stockings – love it!)

Sitting in her wagon from her grandparents

Ava and Aunt Mallory

Unwrapping a gift bigger than she is

Opening everyone’s presents!

On Christmas Eve we headed to celebrate with Zach’s other grandma, parents, sister, aunt, uncle and cousin. We didn’t get to stay very long because of the prediction of snow and we didn’t want to face bad roads. Ava did get some good gift opening time there though! By this point, she was a pro!

We made it home after driving through some heavy rain and then headed to celebrate with my family that evening. Shortly after we got to my grandma’s house, it started sleeting and then we saw snow! The kids were beside themselves with giddiness over snow and presents!

My absolute favorite tradition of Christmas is singing Happy Birthday to Jesus on Christmas Eve (even though his bday is actually Christmas Day – it’s really because dessert on Christmas Eve is cake and on Christmas Day it’s pies).

Ava trying to swipe some icing off the spatula

Opening another present – looking to see what she got

By the time we left, the snow had covered the streets and it was snowing pretty hard.. We had about a 10 mile drive but thankfully it was all interstate. I was very nervous though because Zach and I were going to Midnight Mass. Zach was supposed to direct the choir this year and I was singing, so even if I wanted to stay home, Zach had to go and I was pretty much a nervous wreck. I couldn’t even imagine what the roads were going to be like at 1:00 a.m. when they were already getting bad at 8:30! Shortly after we got home, we got a call that Mass had been cancelled!!!!! I was so relieved and at that point decided it was time to be excited about my first ever White Christmas!!!!

So since were safe and snug for the night, we just relaxed and got everything ready for Christmas morning. Since we’d anticipated being gone that night, we’d done all of our assembly before we left!

Right after Santa came to visit!!

It’s here that I will tell you that I was more excited this Christmas than I have ever been, even when I was waiting for Santa to bring me something I really wanted! I could not wait to see Ava come in and see her gifts. In fact, I woke up before she did!!! When she finally got up, we got the camera and video camera ready and let her go to town!

Coming into the living room and stopping when she saw some things she didn’t recognize

Finally getting excited about her kitchen

Taking a break to sit in her chair after about 7 minutes.. but still not giving up her pot

And back to the kitchen! I love how she’s looking at this like she’s just in awe that it’s at her house!!

We finally got her to open another present, and thereafter she would go back and forth between presents and the kitchen

One cute thing she did with all her presents was to rip them just a little and then peek to see what was in there. Then she’d reach her arm inside to try to get it out before unwrapping it all the way.

Excited about her “baaay-bee”

I love that she looks shocked that there is still more!

I think she’s got this present thing down..

Her stocking gift which will be used for distracting her and (hopefully) keeping her quiet during church

And back to play again

After several hours, the roads cleared up a little and we headed to my parent’s house to exchange gifts there.

Thanks for the really loud dishes and showing her how to bang on them, Uncle Stephen!

Ava got a car to keep at her grandparent’s house to ride while she’s there. This was right before she stuck her head under the paper but I unfortunately missed it!

She was in seventh heaven!

When she was given another gift, she pulled it into the car with her because she wasn’t getting out!

And this was on Christmas night when we finally got home. This was one wiped out little girl. I guess three days of opening presents finally caught up with her!

Zach and I decided that this year instead of buying each other a lot, we would just get a new TV! We got this the day after Thanksgiving and we love it! Zach has been so patient in waiting for one of these and now that a lot of other things have been taken care of, it was time to reward the guy for being patient (although I love it too!)!

We still got each other a few small things. I got my Toms!!! Woohoo! And Ava got me the new Wii Fit plus game which I had been wanting! Zach got a couple of the small things he asked for as well, so we had a great Christmas.

I also had some weird shaped things in my stocking and I laughed when I pulled these out! A couple of months ago at my routine wellness check-up, my doctor told me to quit drinking Diet Coke. :( Sad day! But, I’m proud to say I did and now I may have one a week. So Santa thought I’d done so good that I deserved a reward!

This was an incredibly fun and memorable Christmas and I can only imagine that they will get more fun from here on out! I hope you all had a very fun and very happy Christmas!! Nothing this Christmas could have beat the joy we saw in Ava. Hope you got to experience that same kind of warm fuzzy feeling too!!