Merry Christmas Eve....

After having a fabulous Christmas Eve morning, we topped off the day, by hosting Christmas Eve for our families at our home. This year, Matt's Aunt and cousins joined us, as well as my mom, brother and sister in law, and Matt's mom and stepdad. We had hoped for his Dad and stepmom to make it, BUT the snow made it a little too much for them to get here from DeSoto, so next year, we're hoping they can spend Christmas Eve with us.

 It was so much fun. I know it's no secret in our families, how close Gretchen and I are, but for those of you who don't know....she's the bonus that I got by marrying Matt. Seriously, she's awesome, and I consider her to be one of my bestest friends ever. We just click. It's awesome...and thankfully we both have Sprint or our cel phone bills would be outrageous!

I have to say that we are a lively bunch. It was so so much fun. I have missed getting together with them on Christmas Eve (this used to be the family tradition prior to Matt's grandfather's death, and after that we just did a special Christmas with them seperately), however this year we said to heck with it and invited everyone up. Sure, the snow put a little kink in our plans, but everyone arrived safe and sound and we all ate, drank, and were merry (some of us a little more than others!)!

Sydney and Olivia had a BLAST, they were super cute and a little spoiled since Mommy and Daddy broke ALL the rules and let them just eat all the yummy food that we had for Christmas Eve instead of a nice normal healthy dinner like always! Hey, sometimes you have to live a little! :)

A picture of our beautiful Christmas Tree! :)



 The girls playing around.......

 YAY...we get to open presents....they love unwrapping things!

 PUPPIES...sure Aunt Gretchen gave them super cool outfits with super cool pink boots, that were also a hit, but seriously those damn $5 puppies from Walgreens were a hit and remain a hit in our house. Thank you Gretchen for returning the one that didn't work so that the girls could unwrap 2 'quality' puppies! :)

 The girls and their Aunt Zomi. They certainly love her, and are going to MISS her when she and my brother move to Arizona, sometime soon.

 Kyra...Gretchen's youngest, playing around!

 Here starts the Olivia feature of our blog. Here are a sampling of super cute pics of Miss O from Christmas Eve night....

Taking the Bow out of her hair!

 Dancing around with her musical pig. Everytime I go to put that thing in storage, I catch her playing with it and thus it's still out for her to play with. At least now she calls it a pig and not a wee-wee (like the pig that goes wee-wee-wee-eeeeeeeeeeee all the way home)!

 HA! Daddy put the ottoman behind the couch and now I can climb up and harass people sitting on the couch..how cool is that!?

 Stacking blocks with Kyra....

 Watching Sydney play with her puppy, as she's opening hers, thinking, this thing is COOL!

 Getting ready to make her puppy walk and bark, checking out everyone else too!

 Modeling her new outfit from Aunt Gretchen...

 All the girls wanted for Christmas was a Barbie, thankfully, Aunt Sissy had already bought them, so Santa was saved. Here Olivia is playing with her precious Barbie!

 Little Miss Sugar...missing her brother, as her Mommy and Daddy are. Our first Christmas without Cassius has been rough, I'm used to seeing my Bubba sleeping under the Christmas Tree, and little miss Lazy Pants here won't accomodate, she'd rather sleep on the couch, or my bed!

 HEre starts Miss Sydney's portion, or Stinker Baby B as I call her, which she thinks is ADORABLE.

Notice the precious Mickey Mouse in her hands.....

 STILL toting Mickey Around.....

Playing with Tatianna (Gretchen's oldest)..

 Attached to her Neena, as always. That girl is such a Neena's girl, whereas Olivia is a PaPa's girl!

 Figuring out how this whole puppy thing works......

 Actually making it work...wow, this is cool! Check out that concentration....

 ATTEMPTING to model her outfit....

 Wrestling with Uncle Mike...

As I stated earlier, Christmas Eve was amazing, now we just have to wait and see if Hermie the Elf reported to Santa that Sydney and Olivia need to be on the NICE list or the NAUGHTY list!

J