Well things have finally settled down a bit after the holidays so here goes a long holiday post...
We started our holiday season this year with some traditional Christmas activities like sitting on Santa's lap and making a gingerbread house together. Emilia was not a big fan of the big man as you can see by the picture. I think the elves were surprised that I got the picture but I figured, for better or worse, this was Mimi's first experience with Santa. The gingerbread house went much better - she especially enjoyed eating the candy!
We made the trip up to PA on Thursday before Christmas and all the festivities began on Christmas Eve. Aunt JJ, Uncle Mark, all the cousins, Nan, and Pop got to meet Baby Nate.
Emilia had such a great time playing with her cousins, too!
The gifts began flowing that evening after a delicious dinner made by mom. Mimi was super excited with all of the commotion, but she spent quite a bit of time with each of the gifts that she got.
She was even excited to open gifts for Nathan.
Baby Nate spent most of Christmas Eve with Nanny. He was very content to hang out on her lap and cuddle while all of the other kids went crazy opening their gifts. He was awake the whole time and just watched...next year I'm sure he won't be so quiet!
Mimi got her annual Christmas Eve jammies. She couldn't have been more excited that they had a monkey on them...her favorite animal.
After everything settled down Nathan got in his Christmas Eve jammies and cuddled up with Mammaw while we watched "It's a Wonderful Life" (by the way: he spent most of the week like this).
Mimi was a bit surprised to see more presents on Christmas morning. It was tough to get to her open all of them because she was so interested in playing with her new toys.
After we got ready we went to Grami's house and found even more gifts to open! Mimi didn't even open all of the gifts at Grami's until several days after Christmas because she chose to take a nap after lunch instead. I think she was a little overwhelmed.
It was a good thing that she napped so well because there were even more people and even more gifts on Christmas evening at Aunt Janet and Uncle Kurt's house. You can see a cookie in her hand in the picture below...this was one of about 4 or 5 cookies that she had in a short period. We were wondering who kept giving her cookies until we saw that she was helping herself out of the tupperware boxes of extra cookies!
Here's Baby Nate with Mammaw...again!
We got to spend a little bit of time with Matt and Amanda before they went home. Nate was REALLY cozy with Uncle Matt!
Grami got some much needed Nathan time as well!
Mimi got to spend some quiet time with Mammaw too. She even watched her knit...for a couple of seconds. Maybe someday Mimi can teach me to knit...she'll probably learn before I do!
Mimi finally got around to opening her gifts at Grami's house and was thrilled to see Dancing Mickey!
When we got home there was even more Christmas!!! Once again it took some coaxing to get Mimi to open her gifts, but we got through them all...now finding a place to put everything is the tricky part!
We planned on leaving a bit earlier to come home but Uncle Walt McCabe passed away the day after Christmas and we were fortunate enough to stay for his memorial service. Even under the circumstances it was nice to see that part of the family that we haven't seen in so long. It was a beautiful service and a wonderful luncheon at Aunt Janet and Uncle Kurt's house. In true McCabe fashion there was lots of singing and music to celebrate his life.
Mimi just can't help herself when there is music around...(sorry the video is sideways-I always forget that I can't rotate video).
We had such a wonderful Christmas and are truly blessed to have such a wonderful and loving family! Merry Christmas and Happy New Year to everyone. I hope our 2011 is as great as our 2010 was!!
