Yep, more Christmas

After (early) Christmas morning at our house, we were off to my parent's house for our traditional breakfast / gift opening / big family lunch. Sounds exhausting, right? It is, but in the good-holiday-kind of way. Also, in the Santa-please-leave-some-Ambien-in-my-stocking-cuz-Mama-needs-a-nap kind of way.

Ells really got a hang of the present delivery this year ...

Why, yes, you can open the smallest present ever.

Wouldn't you know that the best entertainment for all the cousins was a stack of copy paper and a bunch of old markers? They played so well together.

Some illicit chocolate from Aunt Betsy ... What? she says. It's Christmas!

We raced off after lunch to get Ellen down for a nap (ha, ha, ha) and to do the last of the food prep and house prep to have the Lund family to our house for traditional Christmas dinner. (See above re: Ambien). This was our first year hosting and we were so, so happy to have everyone to our house. It was cozy (that's the nice way of saying we used every chair we own and both mismatched tables), but again the best kind of holiday cozy.

This little kitty cat was ready for her guests ...

And the kids had a great time playing ...

And then Papa saved the day, with the help of Curious George, after I not-so-calmly told Ellen to put the ever-loving-noise-making-alligator AWAY!!!

I wish this picture was more clear, but it captured the perfect end to our evening ... Happy Birthday to Grammy!

Ellen keeps talking about "the spirit of Christmas" ... if she isn't happy with me, she'll say, 'Mom! That's not the spirit of Christmas!', or if she finally takes a nap and I go in to get her she'll say, sleepily, 'Mom! I finally got the spirit of Christmas'. Pretty cute. Can't wait for next year.