Christmas...Again!

Mick was on call the weekend of Christmas, so we knew not to really plan anything where we'd have to be at home. That meant we'd celebrate Christmas with his family on New Year's weekend! His parents, grandma (Lala) and nephew Landon got in on Thursday night, so on Friday, Em was excited to show everyone her new kitchen!


Em's Uncles Robbie and Stacy and cousin Zachary got here Friday, so we all had dinner together that night, and she and Grandma read some stories before bed.

Saturday was a great day--we all had breakfast and then split up since some of us had a few last minute things to buy. After a little bit of shopping and wrapping gifts, it was time for lunch. Emily went down for a 3 HOUR nap (!) and the weather was gorgeous, so we all spent some outside and had a little cornhole tournament. Unfortunately for us, Robbie & Stacy came out the champs :).

When Em woke up from her nap, she and Grandma put on a kitchen concert while we finished preparing our Christmas dinner and got everything in the ovens.

Then it was time to open gifts! Emily gets very excited for presents, but she wants to stop and play with each thing she opens, and is quite protective over her gifts. This Shirley Temple movie from Lala was the first thing she opened,

and as you can see, she didn't want to put it down as she opened her next present.

The cash register from Zachary was a favorite--it goes perfectly with her kitchen, and even has a little credit card that she keeps swiping :).

Grandma and Papa brought her this rocking horse that has been passed down through Zachary and Landon both--she played with it when we were in Brunswick for July 4th, and loved it just as much this time!

You can barely see that she's also rocking her new baby doll in this picture--Grandma picked out one that she has loved carrying around the last few days. She has extra diapers that Em likes to wear as a hat :).

We had a traditional holiday dinner with plenty of food, but fewer sides than usual--although when you have marinated turkey, homemade mac & cheese and fresh canned green beans from the garden, what more do you need!? After it got dark that night and everyone had eaten, we had to set off some New Year's Eve fireworks. I didn't get pictures of the biggest ones because Em got scared and we had to come inside.

We had a good time even with the smaller ones, and of course the sparklers!

Only a few of us made it past midnight to ring in the new year!

We always hate to see everyone go home, but since Zachary's birthday is in January, we'll see them again soon!