Merry Christmas!

We had such a great Christmas!  We enjoyed spending time with friends for Christmas Eve, and the food was all delicious!  Eliza and Audrey played with friends and Dom and I got to socialize, have a glass of wine, and relax.  When we came home, the girls were excited to put the reindeer food out in the front yard, and the milk and cookies inside for Santa.

Eliza dumped hers in a nice neat pile, and Audrey shook and shook that bag until it was in her shoes and everywhere!

When they were all ready for bed, we got out The Night Before Christmas that my grandparents recorded for them.  It was so nice to cuddle with them and listen to Papa read to us.  It made me feel closer to my family, even though we're on the other side of the country.

Christmas morning, brought much more excitement, and lots of big smiles...
Stockings that were spilling out, and new Toy Story potato head sets from Santa awaited the girls when they came into the living room.

Eliza was happy to get this submarine in her stocking - she had been talking about Santa bringing it for weeks.

Audrey with her new Snap n' Style doll from Nana and Papa.

Eliza got the coffee maker set she had been asking for from Nana and Papa too!  Its so cute, and matches their little play kitchen perfectly.

a new leotard for ballet from Aunt Amanda and family.

Dom and I made up some "tickets" to Disneyland for them to open since we are going there tomorrow.  They were in a box, inside of another, and another.  The first box also had little Christmas Mickey and Minnie tumblers for them to take to the park for drinks.  They of course didn't really know what they had until we explained it, but they were excited then.

front 

back

When all the gifts had been unwrapped, Audrey wanted to put on her new Rapunzel dress from Aunt Amanda.  She was so excited!  When she opened it, she said, "it's just what I wanted!"  since she had seen it at the store.

We all got dressed and ready to go to LA to spend the day with Dom's family.  We went first to his Mom's house.  We ate tamales, rice, and beans, and we opened lots of gifts from Lupe and Richard.  The girls were spoiled as usual - cute clothes, 3 sets of Disney figurines, Ariel costume, princess crowns, books, and more.  They had fun with their new sticker books, and played outside with Mamaloop for a bit.

In the early evening, we headed over to Doms' Dad's house.   Lots more gifts to open from them too - Leapster games for Eliza, the Tag Reader and a Tag book for Audrey, kaleidoscopes, adorable ear muffs, books...  We watched Elf and had more yummy tamales for dinner - Dom was in heaven, I can't remember the last time we had tamales.

We got the girls to bed despite the excitement for Disneyland and set our alarms for 6:15 so we could get to the park early!