Christmas Day

Christmas Day this year was at our house. It was really fun to host Christmas for the first time in our home. We started some new traditions this year because of it that I'm really excited about.

Christmas Eve, Ella set out our cookies and milk for Santa.






And the reindeer food outside!


This is Christmas morning after Santa came. My sweet girl has my sleeping genes. So she did not wake up on Christmas morning until 9:30. Heath and I were just waiting and waiting in anticipation. This did however let us get a lot of stuff done and kind of get ahead of the day.


But when she finally woke up she was awake and energized! Pouring out her stocking. She got a bunch of those squinkies. Do y'all know what those are? I'm not sure exactly what she is supposed to do with them but apparently they were a hot seller for this year.


My delicate little girl is crazy about Sponge Bob. I would never had thought that she would love it so much, but for whatever reason she does.


Love her morning hair in these pictures!




After we opened gifts from Santa, my parents, Heath's mom and sisters came over to spend the day with us. Then Ella got to open her presents from the family!
She got Tiana.


And Rapunzel.


And Flynn Rider.


And the big gift we had been anxiously waiting to give her was finally opened.


Rapunzel's tower! It was the one thing she had asked for this year. Apparently lots of little girls asked for this because it was quite a task trying to find it. But Heath and I were on a mission and we finally tracked one down.


Ella is really into blankets! She has 3 specific ones that she has had since she was a newborn and sleeps with every night and takes with her most of the time. But they are little blankets and they aren't covering much of her body anymore. So Heath's mom had some big blankets made, still with the silky edges she likes, that hopefully she will take a liking too like her beloved ones.




They were a big hit.


I made these fun name blocks for the family. They are so super easy to make!




As soon as we were done opening presents, Heath put her tower together and Ella immediately went and put on her Rapunzel gown that she had gotten the day before. She stayed in that gown the entire day and played with her tower! She was stinkin' adorable.


Ella's other big gift was a much needed swing set for the backyard. We didn't have a chance to build it before Christmas, because it takes 8 HOURS to build. 8 HOURS. So we had to give it to her like this. We really just need to hire somebody to build it because I have no idea when we are going to have a solid 8 hours to build this sucker. But she is very excited. I can't wait to get it up.




Later in the day, Heath, Ella and I delivered Christmas breads to our neighbors. It was really fun. I think it's going to be one of our new traditions.


Still sporting her Rapunzel gown and the Rapunzel doll had to come with us also to deliver the breads. :-)






After all the presents were opened, we started on dinner. This is a fun pumpkin dip that a friend of my aunt's made for Thanksgiving. It's ridiculous. It's like pumpkin pie goodness in dip form. I knew I had to make it for Christmas. However, mine did not turn out as yummy as the one I tasted at Thanksgiving. I need to figure out how that one was made. But man it's good.


Heath decided for this year he was going to try to smoke a turkey. We have never tried this before. But Heath is the ultimate smoker of meat, so if anybody could do this without any previous turkey smoking experience, I knew he could. This is early Christmas morning as he puts the turkey in.


And this was the result! It was by far the best turkey I have ever had, even over deep friend turkey. That is a perdy turkey.


After dinner, we all settled in and played a wild game of Catch Phrase. I have to apologize to my family. I don't think I've ever played this game where I don't get all worked up. I think I permanently damaged my sister in law's right ear. She had the unfortunate spot of sitting next to me. :-)