Christmas.... in January

It has been quite a while since Christmas, I know. And most everyone has already posted about their Christmas adventures, which I have enjoyed reading. So, now that everyone else is starting to get into the 2009 swing of things, I figured it is NOW time for me to post our Christmas festivities. This year we spent Christmas and New Years down in Texas with my mom, so we had an early celebration in Utah with Cody's family the day before we left for Texas. It was fun opening presents with all of Cody's family, and Madie really loved the gifts she got. Some of the favorite gifts were the shopping cart (she plays with one everyday at school, and everyday at school it is an epic battle to get her away from it when we have to go home), and her sushi set (she now chops up EVERYTHING from her food when we are eating to Play-doh, and even mommy and daddy). For that Christmas celebration, as well as the week leading up to it, we were lucky enough to have Cousin Lilly and Sue and Ryan in town as well. Madie loved playing with her cousin again (it had been almost 5 months since they had played together) and one of their favorite things was dressing up with the play clothes Grandma Burns has started collecting for them.

We might have a couple of little divas on our hands from now on. They kept fighting over the hats and purses- it was really funny.

That night we got home and finished packing up, and the next morning we loaded up the truck and pointed it southbound for Texas. We left at about 4:30 a.m. and got into town at about 4 a.m. (we lost an hour when we hit Texas, and we took a little detour through an ugly bumpy part of New Mexico). We spent almost 2 weeks in Texas, including Christmas. Madie finally started to get the whole gift thing towards the end of the Christmas morning celebration. It was really fun playing Santa the night before, and Christmas morning was so cute because Madie could not wait to go downstairs and see everything.

Here is Madie opening a Christmas Even present. She got all dressed up in her Christmas PJ's and was ready for Santa to come.

Santa really brought Madie some fun gifts. She got a doll stroller, a vacuum to help mommy clean up, her own guitar almost just like daddy's, and lots of other fun gifts. Mommy and daddy really liked what Santa brought them too this year- we got a FoodSaver vacuum sealer, a cordless mini-vac, and tons of other goodies.

I love this picture of Madie dragging Cody down the stairs to the Christmas tree. She could see all the toys from the top of the stairs, but Cody kept her upstairs while my mom and I got ready with the camera downstairs. Notice she is no longer wearing her Christmas PJ's Christmas morning. That would be because Christmas Eve right after she opened her present we went up to the game room to play some, and she puked all over her play kitchen.

But the PJ's change was convenient because I coincidentally changed her into the same PJ's her baby doll was wearing. She loves taking care of her baby, which is a very good thing considering she will have a real baby to help take care of soon!

After all the festivities we had to take a relaxing bubble bath with the snowflake bath confetti she got. My mom has a big garden tub that Madie took a bath in the entire time we were in Texas. She loved it with all the bubbles and splashing room.

Anywhoooo, we had a fun Christmas season, and I still have tons of pictures I will post later with another post on our Texas trip.