Holiday Love

We were so blessed to have an abundance of family in town this Christmas.  Joey's mom and brother flew in from CA, his sister is local, his Grandparents, Aunt and Uncle drove in from a couple of hours away and his cousins drove in from FL and IN. We had a house full of laughter and love...just the way I like it!  

And another thing that I really like...the sweet picture of my family below.  My Grandma sent us jammies in the mail just a few days before Christmas.  She started the tradition of giving all the grand kids the gift of jammies (often matching) on Christmas Eve, which we would then wear to spend the night at her house.  I've gotta be honest....I loved this tradition when I was a little girl and I not so secretly LOVE this tradition at 28!!  I definitely look forward to continuing this tradition with my children.  Thanks so much Gram and Pam:)!  I didn't notice Daisy's little wave until I was uploading the picture.  Such a cute surprise!

I of course had to get the family in on the picture frenzy.  Here we have Joey's Aunt Kathy, Uncle Mike, cousins Daniel and Robin and her boyfriend Ben.  Daisy is pretty much a given in their family photos now days.  lol.

And perhaps you would like to see me being my usually awkward in front of camera self...see, there is a reason why I am a photographer.  I prefer being behind the camera.  Just sayin'....

Coffee is a must at any social gathering in my house.  Love the coffee aroma wafting through the air.  Love the warm cup between my two cold hands and love handing out a cup for everyone to enjoy.  Warm and cozy beverage = happy people!

And along with coffee comes chocolate.  I know you are just dying to come to my house now:).  Sometimes it takes a while to decide which chocolate is calling your name.  This picture was thus appropriately titled "The Dilemma."  LOL.  Truth be told, I am not a big chocolate lover which is probably the only reason I was willing to share this box of goodness with others.

And there was never a shortage of cute things to look at.  Daisy took care of that!

I began to get a little giddy for Daisy to open a present on Christmas morning.  We had been up since 7 and we were waiting for all of the family to arrive around 8:30 and I just couldn't wait anymore so I slipped Daisy a gift.  Daddy was a little upset that I didn't give him time to get the camera set up and this is Daisy's face as she is wondering why I gave her a fabulous gift only to have Daddy ask her to wait a tiny second as he ran and grabbed the video camera.  hehehe...cruel perhaps but, also quite funny if I do say so.

She only had to wait like 5 seconds...

and it didn't take her much longer than that to open her present...

I had one of those mushy mommy moments as I observed how much time Daisy took to observe each and every gift that she opened. 

Of course the novelty wore off eventually and she was ready for her next goodie...unfortunately for her it still wasn't quite time to open the rest of her presents.  Tugs on the ol' heart strings a wee bit doesn't it:).

one more look at her cute little forlorn face....

It wasn't long before we were back in the game though...

I think it's safe to say that the laptop was one of Daisy's favorite presents.

And I know this because when Uncle Jeremy had to take it away to cut it out of the box..she wasn't very happy at all....and it was hilarious....especially since all Uncle Jeremy wanted to do was make her happy.  He just couldn't win.  Thanks for giving the entire family a nice laugh Daisy:).

"Mommy, I want my pwesent back." So so so so cute.  You can tell that I melted:).

See, as I said...lots of laughter.

And then before we knew it...it was all over and all the presents were unwrapped and Daisy was wearing her darling outfit from Great Grandma Marshall and singing with a box of cake mix (or something) in her hand.

and then I went to go take a shower and when I was done and came out of my room this is what I was greeted with...

Daisy was having a blast sitting in her new wagon, eating a cracker and hanging out with her fam.  Have I mentioned lately how much I love my little girl?  Sigh...so much.

This darling cake was taunting all of us from the counter all morning.  Joey's mom did a fantastic job on this Christmas tree cake!

A little out of sequence but, these pictures below were taken on Christmas Eve night just as we were heading off to our church service, which was UH-MAZING by the way.  I cracked up when I saw this one a few nights back. 

And our little fam gamily all dressed up for church.  Truth be told, Christmas Eve and Easter are the only services that we ever dress up for and not because we have too but, more because we need an excuse to clean up once in a while. LOL.  Our church is quite casual.  I also need to add that this night was the first time in my life that I wore a crazy 3" heel.  I don't like heels because I am already plenty tall enough and don't want to tower over my hubby but, secondly I don't feel safe carrying a baby in wobbly heels.  By jove I did it, though I did take them off the entire service and only almost fell once.  It was my last victory of 2011!