Christmas

Remember when you were a kid and Christmas was this absolutely fantastic, magical time? And then as you got older, you stopped believing in Santa, and Christmas just wasn't as exciting? Well, it gets better when you have your own kids to be excited about Christmas. I remember thinking it was kind of weird that my parents would take pictures of us as we ran down the stairs after Santa left our house. But now I get it- they wanted to capture the sheer joy on our faces! Christmas eve night, after Chris and I had arranged all the presents under the tree, I was so WIRED. It was probably midnight and I couldn't even think about going to bed. I was just so excited for the next day, to see Gianna go gaga over everything. On Christmas morning, I woke up at 6:30 in the morning and laid in bed waiting for G to come and get us like she usually does for what seemed like hours. I finally got her out of bed at 7:30 (she had gone to bed very late the night before AND had not taken a nap the day before) because I just couldn't take it anymore!!! When we came out to the family room, Gianna looked around and said "Where is he?" She thought Santa would be at our house in the morning! She had a great time opening all of her (and Elia's) presents.

This was our first Christmas where Chris and I stayed in Dallas. I loved it! (I actually kind of hope we can do it again next year) It was very relaxed, we didn't have to worry about traveling everywhere, and everything was on our own time. I loved the fact that we ate Christmas dinner with our fine china, in our t-shirts and jeans. (and actually, we decided not to do a big dinner on Christmas night and just moved it to the night after Christmas)

To top it all off, it snowed on Christmas Eve! It was absolutely perfect. I think we got 3 inches or so! We got Gianna all bundled up and headed outside as soon as we could Christmas Day. And thank goodness, it was almost all melted by the end of the day!

Mom and G about to throw some snowballs at dad!

Santa brought Gianna a brand new slide for the playground Chris has been building.

She also got a bike that she is really excited about.

Uncle Matt was here all weekend too and G and E had so much fun spending time with him. We are now looking forward to our trip to Napa this Thursday!