Emmett's First Christmas

The Little Guy was a trooper for his first Christmas. We headed up to Aba's house once I got home from work and we got everything loaded up. We had to wake Clara up after a short nap. She didn't want to fall asleep, perhaps because she was too excited. We were the last ones to arrive and spent the afternoon hanging out, watching Christmas movies, and making dinner (Aba and Tia did most of the cooking). We ate our pasta dinner around 5:00 and it seemed extra delicious this year! We then got ready for church, took some pictures of the kids in their super cute outfits Tia got them, and headed out. Church was extra long, but the kids, even super tired Bayleaf, did very well. Clarita was very excited to get to hold her own candle at the end of the service to sing Christmas songs!

We got back to Aba's around 9:00 and changed into pajamas before opening presents. Clara was really excited about the prospect of opening presents and helped Tia "deliver" them. We drew names this year hoping to cut back on the ridiculous amount of presents, but Tia Erika went crazy with the kids so they still had a ton to open (and they were very excited about it)! Clara opened all of her presents by herself and most of Emmett's too. Bailey did a good job opening most of hers up too. Clarita declared her favorites to be the scissors and puffs Aba gave her, but I think she liked all of them, even the socks! Emmett even pulled a little paper off his presents and was excited to get some toys he can chew on!

They both got bike stands!

Our plan was to put the kids to bed after they opened presents and then open our gifts. Bailey was the only one who cooperated. Clara seemed to be too excited to sleep and cried when we left her alone. Dada finally let her come back downstairs and she helped us open presents. By the time we finished and got to bed it was close to 12:30 AM and Clara was still going strong (Emmett went down around 10:30)! Unfortunately, Clarita was also super excited in the morning and woke up at 6:30 announcing that it was light and "I tink it's day and I tink Santa came!" I tried to convince her that the light was the moon but she didn't buy it. We headed down stairs where she and Bailey (who woke up around 7:30) were content to play with each other and their toys. Emmett was content to snuggle with whoever was willing (and who wasn't?)! Aba made a delicious breakfast and we ate before opening stockings. Clarita ate a plate full of bacon and sausage and nothing else! We opened our stockings after breakfast and Clara had a meltdown because I wouldn't let her open her entire candy cane at one time. She was not content to open one side and eat that before opening more and kept screaming, "I want sticky hands." After 20 minutes of screaming she finally calmed down and opened one side (what a waste of screaming). We packed up our stuff and headed out with two very sleepy kids.

Getting a good picture of all three of them proved to be impossible!

Emmett fell asleep as soon as we left, but Clarita fought it. She closed her eyes immediately, but kept opening them to look around. Dada decided that we should drive up the mountain a few minutes to see snow since it didn't quite make it to Aba's house (it slushed). We got to it about five minutes up the road and stopped a little farther to take a picture of our white Christmas! Clarita fell asleep eventually and stayed asleep when I carried her inside. She slept while we got ready and then fell asleep again on the way to los Abuelos. Unfortunately this meant that she was a monster when I woke her up to take her inside. She didn't want to get dressed and kept saying that she wanted to sleep in my arms like a baby. After half an hour she finally woke up, got dressed, and ate lunch.

We opened presents after lunch and Clara and Teegee had a field day playing with everything. Tristan even got into some of the girls' toys! I was exhausted and fell asleep in the chair with Emmett while everyone else went outside to play on the swingset. Clara refused to take a nap, but was full of energy and actually behaved quite well considering she was running on fumes. We finally headed home around 7:30 after another round of eating. Clarita got to open her stocking when we got home and was very excited to find Aca, her giraffe who had been lost, had come back with Santa! It was a great but exhausting Christmas and I think we need a month to recover!

Cousins!

Fafa snuggles

Playing Uno with Tio Rene

Nap time!