The longer version:  Joe and I managed to get to bed by 11:30 on Christmas Eve.  That’s relatively early for us since we save every stitch of wrapping (minus the stuff we ship to Michigan) until Christmas Eve.  It took us around 2 hours to wrap everything we needed to.  At 1:30am, the girls woke me up and asked me if it was time to get up.  They were also very concerned that their door was opened (typically Joe opens it before we go to bed so that it doesn’t get too cold in there during the night).  Joe had told them he was going to leave it shut on Christmas Eve but when they woke up at 1:30, it was opened.  I told them Daddy opened it and sent them back to bed but when we got up, Joe told them that he didn’t do it and Santa must have looked in to see if they were sleeping and left it open.  At 6am, the girls came in and woke us up and asked if it was time.    We “wrap” the hallway so that no one can go out into the kitchen/living room (thanks Ashlee for that great idea)  and that works well since Joe and I take showers and get dressed before we come out to open gifts. 

We made it out to open gifts around 6:30 or so.  By 6:45, everything was unwrapped and they were playing with stuff.  The biggest hits for the girls?  Mp3 players that play music AND video.  Nate’s favorites?  Legos, of course…lots of Legos!

Dinner was superb!!  We got a fresh prime rib from The Meat House and while it took a bit longer to cook than I’d planned, it was well worth the wait!  We had some twice baked potatoes and garlic & bacon green beans to go with it!  It was soooo good!!

As always, Joe ran the camera for the day and got some great shots!  Take a peek!!

Kids in front of the tree before the opening began!

 Stockings first!  Love Lexi’s expression in this one!

 Lexi in her new twirl skirt!

Twirling! 

Cameras were a HUGE hit! 

Natey watching Maddie opening a present! 

 Natey with one of his Lego sets!

Lexi thanking Nate for the present he gave her! 

Opening the mp3 players! 

Lexi, Nate, me and Maddie 

Lexi Lou Who! 

Natey with more Legos! 

WTG Daddy – encouraging them to put plastic bags over their heads! 

Stockings from Grandma & Grandpa! 

I tried doing a couple of storyboards to help reduce the number of huge pics! LOL  Still ended up with tons to share!  Here’s Lexi Lou – her attitude poking through in the last shot!

Miss Maddie – she was SOOO cooperative today even though the dress was “itchy” and the shoes hurt her feet.

And Natey – always happy to have some photos taken!

Miss Maddie

My favorite shot of the day!  She picked the dress out all on her own and I couldn’t have picked a better dress for her!

Lexi Lou Who with a halfway natural smile.  Her fake smiles take over when we do photo shoots!

Another kinda fake smile – but beautiful nonetheless!

Natey still happy as ever!

I love this boy to pieces!!

And a group shot!

And another….

AND WE’RE DONE!  JUMP!!!!!!!!!!

So yesterday, I started baking around 8:30am and finished packaging stuff up around 10:30pm last night.  I’m exhausted and every joint in my body hurts but I had a lot of fun!   Here are a few pics from my day of baking!

Only 2 cookie fails yesterday – this one where the cookie fell off my spatula onto the counter.  The other one I didn’t get pics since I was too concerned about getting a candy cane kiss out of my rug!! LOL

Mid-day – chocolate & mint chip cookies, peppermint kissed chocolate crinkles, Andes peppermint crunch gooey squares and 5 lbs of fudge cooling!

The hugs and kisses awaiting their turn in the oven.

The end result!  YUM!

Mmmmm – fudge! 

My iced sugar cookies – I’m most proud of these.  Typically I suck at icing sugar cookies but these came out ok this time!

More of the sugar cookies…

My favorite decorated cookie!