Christmas

Christmas morning the girls slept in until 7am! According to Chris, this was a Christmas miracle. I actually woke up earlier to about 15 sneezes and a sore throat. Thankfully since it was Christmas morning, I was too happy to care. Eleanor was so patient waiting upstairs until everyone was ready to go down with her.



Santa came indeed! There were gifts everywhere.



Eleanor helped everyone open their stockings while we all got coffee and settled in.



After stockings E was itching to unwrap some gifts. She had asked Santa for dolls and dresses.



Not a doll or dress? We'll come back to that...



A dress - bingo! Her 'wedding dress' to be exact. She loved twirling in it and didn't want to take it off.



Jane loved her new baby doll!



They both loved playing with the dollhouse my grandma made for my sister and I when we were little. It was so fun getting out all of the old accessories we had for it. We have such great memories with that dollhouse and I'm certain the younger girls will too. Thank you Grammy!



My mom even got a gift from her mother (her sister found an old Christmas present from their mom after she passed. It was labeled to Dorothy Jean - must have forgotten to mail it years ago!)



Eleanor was a great help to everyone unwrapping.



We loved our pajamas so much last year we decided to wear them again.



We had such a nice morning with family and are so thankful for all the generous, thoughtful gifts. After spending the morning with my family, it was time to head over to Eric's parents' house.



Eric wore his ugly Christmas sweater. We visited for a while before jumping into opening even more presents!





I'm always overwhelmed with how generous and welcoming Eric's entire family has been to me. They have definitely made me feel like part of the family already. This picture frame below was from his Aunt Diane.



The picture below was a gift from Eric's Aunt Patty. It's a frame of some pressed flowers from their Papa's funeral. She made a smaller version for Eric and I as well. It was so sweet and meaningful.





After all the gifts had been opened, we took it easy for the afternoon. Eric and I both felt like we were getting sick. I took a short nap while he got his dad's new VR headset working.



His parents were busy in the kitchen getting a delicious dinner ready. It was sooo good and we were very grateful to have some leftovers as well. Thank you so much!



After dinner I went back to my mom's house to spend time with everyone before they took off the next day. Eric stayed and spent some more time with his parents.



We just want to say a HUGE thank you to both families for having us and for making Christmas so special! We are so grateful for all of our family, extended family, and friends (near and far). It's so nice to have a couple days to focus on loved ones.

Happy New Years Eve! Cheers to 2017!

Twas the night before Christmas

Merry Christmas! I hope you all enjoyed it as much as we did. I went out to my mom's house Friday morning for a dress fitting. Throughout the day everyone arrived - my sister and her family, EP (my Eric), and my brother. Our wedding invitations arrived about a week ago so I brought them with me to enlist some help addressing them.



That night we had two cooks busy in the kitchen. My mom was making a delicious ham dinner while my sister prepared a couple lasagnas to put in the fridge for the next night. The guys were a big help in keeping the girls entertained.



After dinner my sister had the awesome idea to play a game where we had to try and open a gift with oven mits on. It was pretty hilarious to watch and I think we got some good ideas to improve and make it more difficult next year.



Then my brother let us open a couple gifts early (he usually gets us a new game every year). We got two new games to try out that were both really fun. Pretty much any time the little girls were sleeping throughout the weekend, this is what we were doing.



The next day on Christmas Eve, we went ice skating. It was so much fun! We all had such a good time. I don't know why we haven't thought to do this more in previous years but hopefully we will in years to come.



My brother showed Eleanor the ropes again, but this year she was able to stand and skate (baby steps) by herself.





Jane didn't particularly like her skates on the ground, but seemed perfectly content to be in mom or dad's arms while they skated around.





My mom was the most daring with having just broken her arm not too long ago! Aside from my brother, she was skating laps around us. I can't say I wasn't a little nervous about her landing on that arm but it was great to see her having such a good time :)





Skating all by herself!



Sadly towards the end, my sister did walk away with a sprained wrist after trying to protect Jane during a fall. She had to spend some time in urgent care but hopefully it heals quickly! Like mother like daughter - these two injured the very same wrist within two months of each other.



Later the night, EP's parents came over for Christmas Eve dinner. Thankfully Katie had already prepared some amazing lasagnas prior to her injury. Everyone enjoyed dinner and just had fun hanging out and taking it easy that night.







Chris read the Night Before Christmas to the girls.



Katie got to work on some homemade cinnamon rolls for the next morning. So delicious!



And we did a lot of lounging by the fireplace and more game playing before we called it a semi-early night.



We wanted to be well-rested for an early, busy Christmas morning!

National Cathedral

After taking my final(!) exam last weekend, Eric and I went out to dinner to celebrate.



We also finally got to hang out and do random low-key holiday things like watching Christmas movies, taking out more decorations, and working on getting some Christmas shopping done.



Eric also got an ugly sweater gift early from his sister so we had fun decorating that :)



On Sunday we went to the National Cathedral to see the Cathedral Choral Society present Joy of Christmas. I had never seen the National Cathedral from the inside and really wanted to make a point of going this year. It didn't disappoint. So beautiful.





I've seen the outside of the Cathedral from airplanes and driving by, but it was even bigger in person (I'm in the bottom right corner).













The choir did an amazing job and definitely gave me chills a few times. The organist had a beautiful solo and we got to sing along to a couple songs as well. There's just nothing like music at Christmastime. I wish we could listen to it all year-round.





We had an amazing time and it was the best way to celebrate my class being over and being able to spend some quality time together again. I hope you all are enjoying the season - I don't want it to end!