Christmas

It was a Christmas miracle!  Nolan slept til nearly 7am!  He excitedly ran downstairs, saw the Christmas tree, and started jumping up and down, speechless, and excitedly pointing at the gifts.  He immediately noticed that Santa ate the cookies and drank the milk, but was rather distraught that Santa forgot to take the notes he left in the mailbox.  Oops...  

We woke Livi up to join in the opening of presents, after we lit our white Jesus candle, along with our Advent wreath, signifying that today is the today that our Savior is born!  Olivia got a blanket I made for her, a darling dancing Cabbage Patch doll that could be her twin, and some dress up clothes.  Nolan got some HotWheels tracks, some great new books and DVDs, and a set of Cat machines that you can put together and take apart.  

Because the weather was supposed to turn icky, with freezing rain and extremely high winds, we hurried through the rest of our morning so we could get on the road to Durand before the weather was awful.  We made it into Grandma Edie and Grandpa Arnie's driveway right as the rain started to come down.  Once there, we enjoyed one of Grandma's delicious Christmas feasts.  It was also fun to watch all the little cousins play together.  Even Livi loved heading down to the lower level to play with the kids and the toys.  We exchanged a few gifts and headed on to Eau Claire later in the evening, for the next phase of our Christmas celebration.

She insisted on wearing that hat throughout all of her gift opening!