Christmas in Katy and New Year's Eve

This year was the first year that Nathan really understood the Christmas tradition of gift giving and Santa Claus. Olivia, predictably, was clueless. As in prior years, we celebrated Christmas day at our home with Jimmy's family. This year Ashley made it over from Hawaii and Cantrell came up on Christmas Eve, too. Our own little tradition that we are establishing is a big dinner on Christmas Eve and opening presents on Christmas morning followed by a big breakfast. For dinner the menu varies, except for the ultimate ratatouille (served with goat cheese and toasted bread rounds) which has become an annual staple. I'm really only up for making this once a year anyway since it takes over an hour of almost constant stirring. But oh my, is it tasty!

As in prior years, the pile of presents was bigger than the tree could handle. That didn't seem to bother Nathan or Olivia, though. Before we went to bed on Christmas Eve we put out some milk and cookies for Santa. We put two cookies on the plate and Nathan tried to convince us that Santa really only needed one cookie and he could have the other one. No such luck, Buddy. I was so worried that he would be too excited to sleep, but he fell asleep while we were reading books in his bed.

Christmas morning came and we woke up the kids. Not sure how many more years of that we'll have! When we came downstairs we found that Santa had left a Puff the Magic Dragon book (and CD) and big boy bicycle for Nathan. Olivia had comfortable chair, purse and a soft baby doll. Both of them seemed pleased with their spoils. Then we started opening presents....for, like, an hour. Part of the reason it took so long was we had to un-box every single present Nathan opened as he opened it. Safe to say he loved everything he received. We had to keep reminding him that he had more presents to open. A sure sign he got too much stuff. One of Olivia's presents was a princess castle, so we stuck Uncle Cantrell in the corner to put it together while she slowly made it through her own pile. She is still kind of hard to buy for, but she enjoyed stealing Bubba's toys and playing with them, so all in all she did just fine. I'm not quite sure how our living room contained it all.

My favorite part of Christmas is enjoying the munchkins and having family around. It has been several years since I've been able to be with my own family for Christmas day, so it was nice having Cantrell around, even if it was only for a little while. Sitting back and watching Daddy, Popo and Aunt Ashley playing with my babies was wonderful. I am so thankful for the amazing family we have and the blessing they are to our little family. Even though I get really stressed out during the holidays, I love and appreciate all of the gifts our gracious God has given us.

We enjoyed the Christmas break at home this year and decided for New Year's Eve we would buy sparklers and Black Cat snaps (you know, those little white packets of gun powder that you throw on the ground and they pop). Nathan is obsessed with fire, so we though he would enjoy them. Mission accomplished! He was a little afraid of the sparklers at first, but eventually enjoyed swirling them in the air and making circles. Olivia was not really on board and stayed safely in my arms the entire time.

Looking back, 2014 was a fun year. Nathan's imagination was blooming and Olivia's personality was developing. We now get to look forward to more fun in 2015.