Part Two, Christmas in Xenia

After a pretty fabulous Christmas at home, we packed up the car and headed to Xenia for Christmas Part Two.  We arrived late afternoon on Christmas Eve to a very excited LylaBird, Sweet Jack, Tia, Tio, Grandma & DD.  What followed was several days of holiday cheer.

Here are some of our favorite photos from Christmas in Xenia.

Who knew Grandma & DD were such personal friends with Santa, who very graciously swung by the house on his way back to the North Pole on Christmas Eve? The girls were thrilled!

And this one cracks me up. Josie is not so sure about Santa touching her and Jack gets a closer look.

Grandma gets the annual matching jammies (dating back to a Johnson sister tradition).

 Ly & J cuddle for a movie.

Santa has been here!

Josie dives right in!

And spots her "Mrs. Claus" dress that she had been dreaming about since Thanksgiving.

Bea eats her gifts with enthusiasm.

And we try to get both girls in the same picture and kinda succeed...kinda.

Lyla gets her doctor's kit.

 Josie adds to her nail polish collection.

My favorite! Josie asked to sign this package for Grandma & DD and I didn't help her with any of the words. I hope they liked their recorded picture frame from "Josie, Dad, Butrist, Venis and Mom". The whole "Bustrist" for Beatrice cracks me up. B - uh - trist: love it.

A girl & her golden tea set

Josie gets super pumped about more books in her favorite series!

Jack gets his train.

And we all cheered when Lyla yelled out "my roller coaster" when she opened her scooter. (Whew!)

Next year little ones, next year...

Josie tries out the first of many new dress-ups.

I captured the Jack look! Hilarious!

Josie looks 18!

More dress-ups, more books!

A trip to Chicago in our new future

Grandma, who will kill me for posting these, gets a big SURPRISE for Christmas. Bengals/Ravens tickets. She was so shocked and so happy. Clearly.  (Good job DD!)

A little holiday hot-tubbin.

Sweet Josie helps Grandma set the Christmas table. (Love these!)

 ...(Senior portrait Carri approves).

Bea crawls around and explores.

Mrs. Claus test drives a remote control car.

A not-posed photo of Lou and his baby girl

 And a posed one

 Me & Baby Bea!

Annual Christmas photo shoot (exposing some Irish roots, am I right?)

Andy why did we do this right before Bea's nap?!

Christmas dinner at the kids' table!

And then there were several more days of relaxed play, cookies and cousins (but not many photos).

Couldn't resist a photo of all the music-playing, light-up friends that kept the party going!

These girls!!

I love that the kids will have memories of "Christmas at Grandma & DD's house" to always think back on with a smile.

Christmas Morning at Home

I am not entirely sure why the sound goes all wonky on this, but you get the idea.  One of Josie's most endearing qualities is how excited she gets about the little things - in this case it was a big candy cane that was may more important to her than the presents under the tree. And while that Huggle Pod and Fresh Beat Band tickets also got big smiles on Christmas morning, our dear sweet Josephine got just as excited about all the new books, "real soccer shoes," fuzzy socks and a roll of Pez.  What a sweet girl!

(Ha, I should also add, in case you miss it, that Josie's first words when she saw the tree was that Santa has the same wrapping paper as us. That girl!)

Christmas, Part One

Our Holiday really consisted of 12 days divided into three distinct parts.

Part One: Christmas at Home

Part Two: Christmas in Xenia

Part Three: Christmas *Break*

And here is Part One (and it already seems like ages ago).  Having our own unique holiday traditions is important to us, and as soon as Josie was old enough to know the difference, we started having one version of Christmas here at home and one version of Christmas in Xenia. We do the morning of Christmas Eve at our house, and since we signed up for Santa's annual reindeer & sleigh run-through program, he comes to our house on Christmas Eve-Eve.

Josie was SUPER excited, as she "got it" more this year than ever.  She had nothing short of a gazillion questions, and we tried to match her wit, play along but not go overboard all at the same time. (What a delicate dance!)  In the end, she was content to hang a sign in the window to let Santa know everyone was asleep and dream of sugarplums while Santa snuck down our chimney and delivered the goods.

Bea was curious about all of the action.

Josie got right to work with the unwrapping.

Josie couldn't wait to give Louie the present from all of us. Even Bea was excited to watch him unwrap it.

It is the rest of the Mr. Putty and Tabby books! Lou's favorite books to read to Josie. And now he has the full set! :)

Bea did some unwrapping (and some wrapping paper eating).

Santa surprised me with some shiny new rainboots that were very much needed (and appreciated)!

Josie and Bea played together as they unwrapped new toys.

Josie smiled...

...And smiled

...And smiled

 Venus joined us.

And Santa came through for Josie...

 ...with The Hugglepod...

...the one thing she picked out in a catalog months ago and didn't forget about once Christmas rolled around. You know, the present she told everyone that she wanted that Santa just couldn't ignore....

And Bea crawled around looking adorable.

And we spent the rest of our Christmas at home playing with toys, reading new books and spending "slow time" together.

And then we packed the car to head to Xenia for Christmas Part Two. (Stay tuned...)