Is there another present?

The girls were really into Christmas this year. Unlike last year, where they kind of just went with the flow, this year, they understood it. Well, they understood PRESENTS. And family visiting.

Before Rich and I settled down for our long winter's nap, we had to come up with a game plan for middle of the night wake-ups. Rich thought that it would be a bad idea to sleep downstairs as whoever was down there would most likely want to tear into the presents as soon as they caught sight of them. Let's just say that my Christmas Eve was a long winter's somethingorother. Definitely not a nap though.

It has actually become quite comical - this guessing who is in our bed and how she got there. Em came wandering in kind of early. Maybe around 1:00. I brought her back to her bed and sat with her until she was obviously asleep. That exchange only took about five minutes. I knew that she would be back though. And two hours later, she was. I went to toss her up into the middle of our bed but someone was already there. What? I don't remember putting Allie in the bed and neither does Rich.

The girls were all awake around 7:30 and we headed downstairs after everyone had been to the bathroom and Anna was cathed. If you couldn't tell from the pictures, they loved opening presents, even presents that didn't belong to them. They also loved handing out presents and even assisted in picking up the wrapping paper.

At the family Christmas party the weekend before Christmas, Santa had brought each girl a movie and a Disney plush. Here's what he left for them Christmas morning. Note that these are shared gifts, not per child.

• Fisher Price Loving Family Grand Dollhouse - the one with furniture for 5 rooms
• 6 additional people for the dollhouse
• Dora's castle
• 2 additional mini Doras
• Tinkerbell's house - mini play set
• Cinderella play set with coach, mice, fairy godmother
• 3 princess dresses
• 6 pack of princess shoes
• Washable markers
• Minnie Mouse pencils
• 3 giant princess coloring books
• Dora's backpack set

We decided to host not only Christmas dinner for my family but Christmas brunch with Rich's sister, brother-in-law, niece and niece's fiance. I thought that it would be easy this year because presumably the girls would be so into their new toys, they wouldn't cling to me. There was a bit of cling and fighting over sharing the new toys but it wasn't too bad.

Rich had to work Christmas Eve day and I needed to finish up last minute shopping at Target and begin preparing food. Rich took Allie to work with him, which left me with two munchkins. Two munchkins are much more manageable than three but man, shopping with two of them takes sooooo long. My eye was beginning to twitch before that trip ended. The thought of driving home, unloading everything and feeding the munchkins somewhat of a late lunch seemed a bit daunting so we ate pizza and breadsticks in the food court instead.

So back to Rich taking Allie to work. How cute does she look?

That afternoon I was able to assemble and refrigerate the egg casserole and buffalo chicken dip and bake a pumpkin pie. I really do like to cook and bake but unfortunately, I never seem to have enough time or I'm too tired to bother. We had to keep it real simple this year. Here was our menu:

Brunch

• Christmas Brunch egg casserole
• Hash browns
• Cinnamon roll twists

Appetizers

• Buffalo chicken dip
• Cheese spread
• Crackers
• Celery
• Tortilla chips

Dinner

• Turkey
• Mashed potatoes
• Stuffing
• Green beans
• Baked carrots with brown sugar glaze
• Rolls
• Cranberry sauce

Dessert

• Apple pie (homemade by Grammy)
• Pumpkin pie

And for those of you who are wondering, Rich and I will be spending a night away in the future. Months ago, Grammy and Papa had offered to watch the girls for a weekend. Because this isn't going to happen very often, I was trying to combine a night away with a concert of my choice. I was thinking Foxwoods. Basically, we might be waiting YEARS for the stars to align on that one so a new location had to be determined. And then we had to plan around weekends where we do or may have to work, hotel availability, etc.