Christmas at the Hollis House

We had a pretty great Christmas this year even though we had no family to spend to it with. Holidays are always so hard since we're so far away, but we try to make it the best we can. Kevin had an entire week off, which I think was great because they have worked these guys to death the past year. We didn't do much during the week.. just spent some quality q-t. We did take an evening and go to Poffabro, a town only about 10 minutes from our house, to see nativities. It was very cold. Even though it's not far from us, it's such a different climate. Despite the cold, Rosalie had a BLAST, which totally shocked us. They had a live band that just moved from street to street playing music. It def made it feel Christmasy.

My sweet family!

My Princess and I!

Roey and Daddy!

This nativity was made entirely from CORN!

We decided to skype with my family Christmas Eve since they had a very busy Christmas Day planned. We skyped with them so they could open their presents and Rosalie opened a few from them. After we were done skyping, it was way past Rosalie's bedtime. Kevin sent her lil butt off to bed so Santa could come but she wanted no part of it. She sat in her bed and screamed and kicked the wall. This went for a good 20 minutes before she crashed. We played Santa.. exchanged our Christmas stockings.. then went to bed.

It didn't take Buddy long to find his Christmas presents!

Santa Came!

Rosalie woke up at 5am Christmas morning. 5am is too early for her. I knew she was going to be grouchy and whiney so after a few fusses, I let her be, and she went right back to sleep til 6. When she came downstairs she was so excited and ran straight to her presents.. which is not her normal morning routine. Usually as soon as she gets up you have to get her a drink.. then while she has her drink she goes to the potty and does her thing. (Don't get all excited.. that's the only potty we have down is when she gets up. We're still working on it) I knew if I let her start opening she'd pee so I made her go in and sit down (yeah i'm such an awful mommy hahaha.) She peed as fast as she could and took off running for the livingroom. After getting a fresh diaper put on she went right to work opening presents. She opened for about 45 minutes when it became a fight to get her to open presents because she wanted to play with the new stuff. We let her take a break and play and then Kevin and I opened. After we finished we made her go back to opening which was probably another 45 minutes. When she was done we got all her stuff put back under the tree and cleared the livingroom so her big present could come out.. her Dora four-wheeler! As soon as Kevin sat it down she jumped on and took off! She absolutely loved it! After she played for awhile and got her bath, we took her outside so she could ride with more room. After she got bored with riding we sat outside and colored with chalk on the sidewalk for a good hour. I cooked a huge dinner and after dinner we watched Elf and A Christmas Story. Overall, it was a good day.

(Please note.. pictures are in reverse order of our Christmas morning haha)

My little artist

Rosalie and I Christmas morning.. yup we had matching pjs!

Rosalie with all her loot!

"Cheese" hahaha

Boy was Santa good to us this year!!

Deciding what's next!

Rosalie made out really well for Christmas lol. She still has more presents to open at my mom's house because I told her not to send all her gifts since the movers will be coming in a month and a half. I was pretty pleased with every one of my Christmas presents! We got our usual money from the families.. then I got an Apple Tv, the final 2 HP movies, The Biggest Loser for the Kinect, a charm bracelet with about 9 charms (which is something I always wanted!), some stuff from AE, VS satin jammies, Under Armour, Bare Minerals, lotions and bath stuff.

Hope everyone had a Christmas as wonderful as ours was!