Christmas Eve (12/24/09)

Thankfully, Lily was feeling a lot better today. She still has a slightly runny nose but her labored breathing is completely gone and her mood and demeanor are back to normal. I am so glad as it would have been awful for her to spend her first Christmas holiday sick. Unfortunately, Paul and I were dragging as we have been sleep deprived all week. Paul took Lily in the morning and let me sleep in a little bit. I always underestimate how long it is going to take everyone to get ready and we had to plan our showers around Lily’s bath (she always gets us drenched so we didn’t want to get ready until we had her bathed) and had to plan Lily’s bath around her morning nap so we ended up running late, as usual. Christmas masses at St. John Catholic Church in Davison always fill up fast so my dad planned on being there at 3pm for the 4pm mass. My mom decided that she couldn’t attend church because it would be really hard for her to get around with her walker and stay off her foot during mass so, unfortunately, she had to stay home. We planned to meet my dad at their house and all go to church together but since we were running late, he went alone and held seats for us. We arrived at church about 30 minutes before mass started. I was glad that we didn’t arrive any later because the church was already almost completely full and it would have been hard for my dad to keep people out of the seats he was holding. We sat by the Bailey’s so I got to marvel at how big Rayna is getting. She is almost exactly a year older than Lily and looks just like her mom. She is so cute! Lily looked adorable herself in her red dress and cardigan from Beth. She slept through most of the service which was good because she was quiet and got to get rested up for Great-Grandma Marion’s house. After church, we went straight to my grandmother’s house while my dad went back home to pick up my mom. Lily was in a wonderful mood and was acting like a ham for my grandma.
Here is Lily and Paul all dressed up. Paul is wearing the reindeer tie that Rachel got him for an early Christmas present:

My little cutie navigating around the living room through use of the furniture:

Shortly after my parents, Robin, Lee, and Todd arrived, we all had dinner. Lily was really hungry so she got a head start. She really liked the little croissant sandwiches as she loves all food that she can feed to herself:

Lily is really into glasses and loves to pull them off of people’s faces. Here she is playing with Todd and his glasses after dinner. I love the look of wonder on her face:

Lily hanging out in her ‘My First Christmas’ bib during after-dinner cleanup:

After the dinner rubble was cleared away, Ashlee and Jeremy arrived from having dinner with Jeremy’s family and we all took our seats for the present exchange. The youngest person traditionally hands out everyone’s gifts but Lily is a bit too young so Todd did the honors this year. While he was handing out presents, my dad checked out my new camera and took this lovely pictures of my mom’s broken foot:

We should have gotten pictures of my mom and grandma with their matching walkers but my grandma is actually getting around quite well without hers. It has only been a month since her knee replacement surgery. Lily wanted to sit with me and no one else all night so Paul was in charge of taking pictures during present time. Apparently he had a little bit of tunnel vision and only took pictures of Lily. My dad and I are in the pictures only because we were right next to her. We only got a few shots of Todd and the previous picture of my mom’s foot. So apparently you will have to trust me when I say that my grandma, Robin, Lee, Ashlee, Jeremy, and the remainder of my mother were in attendance (and looked quite nice).
Here is my dad, Lily, and I getting ready to open presents. Lily is playing with a little Pooh book ornament from Aunt Robin. Ooh, and the backs of Robin and Todd are in the picture as well:

Lily was really excited:

Here is Lily opening her first present, some snap-lock beads from Robin and Lee. She really liked them:

We always go around the circle and take turns opening our presents. The next time it was Lily’s turn, she got a stuffed lion from Ashlee and Jeremy. She loved it. She was fascinated by his mane and the first thing she did was fluff it with both of her hands with a look of wide-eyed wonder on her face. It was really cute but we didn’t catch it on film. Then she pulled it close to her face to snuggle:

It was 8:00pm and Lily started getting tired. She started snuggling up on me and closing her eyes so we abandoned taking turns and let Lily open all of her presents first before she fell asleep. She absolutely loved all of her gifts. She couldn’t tear them open on her own (and tried to eat the paper every time I had her attempt to help me) but she waited excitedly while I opened her presents then grabbed them from me and played with them like they were the greatest things she had ever seen. It was so cute.
Here she is with a bath book and rubber ducky from Grandma Marion:

She wanted to get down on the floor and look at her bath book so I set her down to open her last few gifts:

She got a cute outfit and some great smelling soap from Robin and Lee. Here she is with a toy from Grandma Marion:

Lily was no longer tired and happily played with her toys on the floor while the rest of us resumed taking turns opening our gifts. We figured it would be more comfortable for her to play in pajamas so we changed her into her adorable Santa pjs from Kirsten:

Lily got sleepy again so she wanted to sit on my lap with her lion. She looks like she is waving at the camera:

Almost asleep on mommy:

And two minutes later, she’s wide awake again! Christmas is just too fun to sleep through:

Me and my new scarf:

Todd and Lily:

Back to playing with her new toys:

My dad and I were passing around an ornament for everyone to look at. Lily desperately wanted to see it too:

Lily delightedly showing me that Ashlee let her play with her bracelet:

Getting snuggly again on mommy:

We had a great time and a wonderful Christmas Eve. Lily was up way past her bedtime and wasn’t really ever able to fall asleep until the car ride home. It was a slow drive as there was freezing rain so we got home really late. Here is Lily snuggling with her new lion in the carseat:

By the time we got home and got the car unloaded it was 11:30pm so we didn’t get to bed until midnight. We hope that our late arrival doesn’t mean that Santa will skip over Lily this year, especially since she is new to his route!