Christmas!

We had a really nice Christmas today. Maggie loved all the excitement, opening presents, playing with her new toys, spending time with her Grandma and with Grandpa Bob, eating candy and cookies -- she had a blast!

Christmas Eve

The Christmas cookies -- snickerdoodles courtesy of Maggie's Grandpa Bob -- are being thoroughly enjoyed:


The stockings are hung:


The presents are under/around/near the tree -- there are far too many to actually fit under the tree!


The one token Christmas Eve present has been opened -- a fun animated lion from Aunt Patty and Uncle Tom that Maggie is absolutely fascinated with!




The gift bag has been played and played with


And, best of all, family have arrived to celebrate the holiday with us:



We're ready -- now all we need is for Santa to come!

Definitely NOT a Charlie Brown tree

We put our tree up on Saturday. Our first live tree ever -- we've always traveled for Christmas in the past, so we couldn't have a real tree. This year we're staying home for the holidays, and I LOVE our live tree!

This is the one. We had to trim a little off the top and a little off the bottom so it would fit!


Maggie was a big help putting the tree stand together:


And making sure it was in the right spot:


And getting the tree up:


She makes the face all the time lately!


What a great tree!


Sneaking up on the ornaments:

Admiring her catch:


Classic Maggie:

Happy birthday, Grandma!

Maggie and I made this sign to wish her grandma a very happy birthday today. Hope you're having a wonderful day, Mom!

Scary Santa

Maggie had her first Santa encounter at the MOMS Club holiday party tonight. She was fine as long as I held her and we kept our distance. Here's what happened when I tried to put her down so she could go accept her present from Santa:


See how blurred it is? That's because she was struggling as hard as she could NOT to be put down!

But she was interested in the present once she was safely back in my arms!


Oh well -- there's always next year!