Christmas Eve 2012

Unfortunately, Da had to work on Christmas Eve, so our tradition of spending the whole day together was a bit broken.  Luckily, I have two wonderful children to keep me company :).  Norrin woke up way too early and was a bundle of excitement.  So much so that I wasn't sure I wanted to keep my ears attached to my head by mid-morning.  Our day started to fill with activity and things got a little easier.  There are two main events- cookie decorating and opening presents from family and friends.  Todd missed out on the cookie decorating, but I made sure to take lots of pictures of the action.

Ani Rose liked to decorate (with my help)...

 Then, she would sample a bit of the frosting.

 Norrin was a very focused artist this year.  He spent an hour carefully decorating all the cookies he reserved as "his".

 Ani Rose figured out how to work the sprinkles.

 Then, there would be more tasting.

 And maybe a little bit of squishing with her hands.

 Norrin's cookies.

 Mommy's cookies.

 Ani Rose's cookies...uhhh, yeah, well...it was her first time :).

 Then, when Da got home from work, we had dinner.  Penne pasta and meatballs, salad, rolls and chocolate cake for dessert.  Norrin swallowed his food without even chewing because he knew it was going to be time to open presents after dinner.  It killed him to wait for us to finish our meal and then Ani Rose got hurt (bloody nose caused by a knitting needle she was carrying...it was a perfectly orchestrated disaster that traumatized me more than it did her), but eventually it was time to open presents and man, these kids are spoiled :).

Angry birds underwear.

 Norrin had a great face for almost every gift... just so excited.

 Ani caught on quick.

 But she felt the need to play with each toy as she got to it...which made Norrin so impatient that he decided to open her last three presents...all books.

 Norrin's present to me...a picture of a solar system.

 Todd's top secret gift from me...a new camera.  This blog is going to have a serious upgrade in photo quality now that the artist has a new toy :).

 Ani Rose at midnight on Christmas Eve.  She had no desire to go to bed early.  She had a snack, watched Charlie and Lola and acted like she could care less that all the rest of us wanted her in bed.