Christmas 2007- Best Christmas Yet!

It is amazing what the presence of a child can do to Christmas. Ava is way too little to understand what was going on, but just having her there brought a little bit of that magic of Christmas back that I felt when I was a kid. I can't wait for her to get older because I know it will just keep getting better.

Christmas Eve we spent with Josh's brother, Jared, and his family. They came over to our house for a nice Christmas Eve dinner, and of course being the party-rific person that I am I had to have candle light, sparkling cider, cloth napkins, Christmas music playing in the background, etc. It was a really fun evening and the McDaniel family was so great to go with it and let me have my fun. We had the kids open their presents from us. My favorite is the picture of our nephew Cody, who got a book from us (Josh's idea). I can just tell that he is trying to act really excited about it, but he isn't quite doing it. We then put Ava in her Christmas pj's, after she peed all over Jared, because yes, I did it again, I forgot to change Ava since that morning. Give me a break, I had a lot going on that day. Then, we headed over to the McDaniel's house for a little birthday celebration. Jared's b-day is acutally Christmas day so we had a little celebration for him. We had the best homemade hot cocoa and Tiffani, my sister-in-law, made two pies and two cakes. It was quite the celebration.

Christmas morning, Ava and I woke Josh up. I, of course, couldn't sleep, I still get way too excited. Luckily, Ava was on my side and woke up around 7:00. We came out and opened gifts. Ava loved her exersaucer and she has been so much fun playing in it since. Sophie got a new toy, Buster got a rain slicker, and Lola (not pictured) got a nice new blanket for her kennel. Ava got an exersaucer, a few small toys, clothes (love the picture of Josh holding up the little skirt) and a new outfit and the set of stacking rings that we all had growing up from my mom and dad. Josh got the typical boring guy stuff, mostly dvd's. But, I was the spoiled one this year. Josh is so creative and always does little scavenger hunts for me, but this year takes the cake. He wrapped a poem in a box that he had written himself basically telling me that I was going to have to play "Let's Make a Deal" for my presents. He had put gifts behind eight different doors in our house and in order to get that gift I had to trade it for one I already had or answer a trivia questions (he compiled the questions by browsing my US Weekly Year in Review magazine) Of course I answered the questions 100% and was able to keep all of my gifts. The first door I opened contained a present from Josh and Ava, I was so excited to see what was in the box and completed disgusted when I opened a box containing a dirty poopy diaper. The smell was awful. Josh thought he was so funny. Behind the next doors were a new blowdryer, the dvd Hairspray, and a new pair of shoes. Then we went upstairs and in the bathroom was a gift from the puppies. Bet you can't guess what it was.... Yep, a box full of dog poop! Totally gross, yet so funny. In our bonus room was the x-box game Rock Band which is like Guitar Hero but has drums and a microphone. We have loved it! In our office was a brand new desk top computer (our old one was way old and outdated) however, I haven't even used it once because behind the last door was a brand new laptop just for me. I was so surprised and so excited. It is so much quicker than our other one, which is so nice for digital scrapbooking. Basically, I was majorly spoiled this year.

We had a really laid back rest of the day filled with Rock Bank and making food for our Christmas dinner we were having with a couple of other families.

Overall, it was a great holiday, it was so nice to spend some time with Josh. We saw three movies and Ava was perfect through all three of them. It was just so nice to be able to enjoy each other's company.