Christmas

 I love Christmas time!  I love everything about it.  I don't love all the crazies at the mall during Christmas time though.  I try my best to avoid the mall close to Christmas.  That's why I do most of my shopping online.  I don't know why I waited so late to take Eli to see Santa this year and I promised myself I would never wait this late again!  Just FYI, don't wait until December 23rd to go see Santa.  Just don't do it.

How cute is he though?!?!!

Finally...

  Christmas round 1 was celebrated with my family.  My Mom and Randy came up the weekend before Christmas and my brother came to town too.  I love when we are all together.  It's loud and fun and we eat a lot of good food!  Of course Eli only wanted to open presents!

    He is so proud of his new boots from Mimi and Grandy!

Christmas Eve we opened a few more presents from Grandma Sheila, or "Memaw" as Eli has started referring to her!

Christmas morning at our house was laid back and low key... just how I like it!

Santa was good to Eli this year!  He had fun checking out all the new toys.

After checking out the new toys from Santa we opened gifts from each other.  Chad's parents were able to come up at the last minute on Christmas Eve so they could be here when Eli woke up on Christmas morning.  Also, "Santa" needed a little help putting something together.  Ha!

 Eli is loving his new telescope from Mimi & Papaw!  We've been using it the past few nights to look at the moon.  I admit, it's pretty cool!  Tomorrow is a full moon and Eli can't wait to see it!

 This is the "something" Santa needed help putting together!  Eli was so excited and shocked to see that Santa had left him a trampoline in the back yard!

He's LOVING it!

And so is Daddy!  I actually like it too!

After presents I cooked a late breakfast of Pioneer Woman's Baked French Toast.  If you've never had this then go to the store right now and buy the stuff!  It's out of this world!  I also made this breakfast casserole.  It's my new go to breakfast casserole.  

After Chad's parents left we headed to our friends house for a late Christmas lunch.  The Ko's have become our second family.  We are so lucky to have such good friends like them!

Steven and Julie have a little girl, Emma, who is the cutest thing ever!  Just look at those cheeks!

Robert was one of my best friends in high school and we have remained good friends ever since!

After the Ko's we came back home to relax and let Eli play with some of his new toys.  This is the much talked about and anticipated "car maker" Eli asked Santa for.  He saw this crazy toy in one of the many toy catalogs and couldn't stop thinking about it.  It actually makes little Hot Wheels cars from wax sticks.  It is pretty cool.

And that my friends, was our Christmas.  I hope you all had a very merry one as we did.  It's definitely my favorite time of year!