Christmas Eve 2009

Amelia opening gifts from her Aunt Lisa. With each gift, she would get all giddy and giggly as soon as she began ripping into the wrapping paper.

Amelia sitting on Daddy's lap with her cousins, Curtis and Renee.

Amelia and her Daddy with her Gramma.

The little Princess awaiting her dinner.

Miss Mia eyeing up the huge block of chocolate her Great-Uncle John was holding.

"While visions of sugarplums danced in her head . . ."

Christmas Eve was traditionally held at my house, with Steve's parents and siblings (and their families) joining us for a family dinner and gift exchange. This year, Steve's Mom requested the celebration be held at her house as her health is declining and she didn't think she would be able to climb the stairs to our family room.

We spent late afternoon with Steve's family. We watched Amelia "ooooh" and "aaaahh" in delight over each and every one of her gifts from her grandparents, Aunt Lisa and her family and Uncle Jeff. They gave her some of the most awesome gifts - tons and tons of books, some cute outfits, a leapfrog, and a mini-vacuum to name some of the gifts I can remember off of the top of my head. She gave her grandma the digital photo frame that you can see in some of the pictures. A few nights before, I had gone through the thousands of pics on my hard-drive and pulled a few to install on the frame so Steve's brother wouldn't have to sit and try to figure the thing out (not to be mean, but his family is so technologically NOT advanced - they don't own cell phones, digital cameras and have never owned a single computer).

From Steve's parents' home, we drove the 1/2 mile to my Aunt and Uncle's home where we celebrated Christmas Eve with gifts and a yummy dinner.

Miss Mia was so tuckered out from all of the Holiday Festivities that she fell asleep in the car on our way home. She never woke up for us to give her the traditional Christmas Eve gift of pajamas. Even when we (oops, I mean Santa) was placing her gifts under the tree and making a bit of noise, the poor gal never moved a muscle!