The Christmas Celebrations Begin!

On Saturday, we had Bryan's mom, sister (Mary), and brother and his family (AKA Chris, Johanna and Anna) over to celebrate Christmas. Bryan's step-dad and brother-in-law and niece couldn't make it, which we were quite disappointed about. We had lunch, made gingerbread houses and opened presents. A great time was had!! Lily and Anna really enjoyed making their gingerbread houses, which I was glad about because I wasn't certain how that would go over. I didn't know if Anna was old enough to get into it, but she LOVED it. She cried when she had to stop putting candy on for a minute so that her Daddy could frost more of the house. She also loved eating the candy, I think! Lily liked telling her Daddy what to put on the house--it had an animal theme and Bryan's artistic talents were tested! Lily is certainly old enough to know how great it is to open presents and so she enjoyed that perhaps most of all! We have told her what a lucky girl she is to have so many wonderful family members who have spoiled her with all of these presents. One of her favorite presents was Disney princess make-up, which she then proceeded to put ALL over her face, my face, and her Grandma's face. She also did all of our nails...about 3 times.

Lily and Daddy--working on the gingerbread house.

The dog and the cat's face---there is a fish on the other side. I got these pre-made gingerbread houses at Walmart on sale and the kit included the frosting and candy, though we added in a bit more of our own. The best part about them is that the houses were already put together--I can't imagine most kids waiting patiently for it to dry so they could decorate it and I certainly didn't want to do it myself the night before! The funniest was that after the Dads and daughters creatively decorated the houses, Johanna looked at the box that the gingerbread houses came in and laughed at the house on the box, which was, as you can imagine, perfect with a wreath about the door and snow on the roof. Yeah, ours didn't really come out like that, but I think they are beautiful in their own way!!

My beautiful little glamour girl with purple make-up covering the bottom half of her face.

On Saturday night, we went to see the Lights of Life. This was also a big hit with the shortest member of our family!! In her words, "This is crazy, crazy, crazy!!" She liked everything, but loved the Loch Ness Monster most of all. She asked to go back the whole way home.
This hill was absolutely gorgeous in person, but obviously was difficult to capture on film.

On Sunday evening, we met Bryan's Dad and Step-Mom and Chris, Hanna and Anna for dinner to exchange gifts. Since we are going to Greenville this year for Christmas, we won't get to participate in their traditions like decorating cookies and visiting on Christmas day for gift opening, so we decided to go ahead and meet up with them. Bryan's step-mom (Mimi) and Lily have a special relationship and we certainly wanted to celebrate with them as well. I didn't take any pictures, but they also gave Lily a super-nice gift which she loves--a kid friendly CD player and a CD with her name in all of the songs. Needless to say, we have listened to it repeatedly since getting it and I'll post a video soon!!