Christmas Morning 2015

I still get Christmas morning jitters even now at 27 years old but these days they have more to do with the excitement of watching others open gifts than opening gifts myself.  Of course, I definitely appreciate the gifts I receive and everyone seemed to be especially thoughtful this year.  We loved having all the family in one cozy room sharing the love.

We were pretty pumped at the idea of watching Eleanor come out to see her Santa present.  She has been loving all of her friends' baby strollers for the past 6 months (she's the stroller stealer at every playgroup) so we thought it was about time she got her own.  Her reaction was everything we hoped for and we almost couldn't reel her back in to open her other gifts.

^^Scoping out the scene

^^And then she spotted it!

^^Love that smile right there :)

Molly got her own walker and was immediately in love.

 And here are the two girls with their santa gifts...

I'm going to try to stop my commentary for now and just bring on a whole slew of pictures.  So here's the rest of the morning!

 ^^This pictures is hilarious to me.  Guess she really loved that sweater!

 ^^Somebody got some Ray Bans and was pretty jazzed about it I'd say.  Of course, the "cool guy" look wouldn't be complete without this awesome shirt and hat combo below from Aaron Hewlett...

^^It's hard to tell but that is Aaron McKell hug-attacking Aaron Hewlett because he loved the hat and shirt so much.

 ^^They got each other these jackets from Costco without even knowing the other was doing the same.  Now that's love.

  ^^Eleanor loved this beautiful blanket that MiMi made her.  She now sleeps with it every night.  Thank you MiMi!!

 ^^Aaron's constantly sending Eleanor subtle messages that she should go to BYU.  Anytime you see Aaron coloring/drawing with Eleanor, you can bet he's writing "BYU."

 ^^She was all about the bubbles in her back pocket.

^^This darling teepee was from Nana and Papa.  Eleanor took to it right away.

The afternoon was spent napping, playing with the car track, cleaning up wrapping paper and preparing for dinner.  

Just before dinner, we all went outside and snapped some Christmas pictures.  I didn't end up with the group picture on my camera but here are some others we captured...

And then of course we dove in aggressively to the very delicious Christmas dinner.  Holiday meals really make the day special with everyone sitting around talking and basking in the love.  

Such a wonderful, love-filled Christmas day :)