Christmas Eve Re-Cap

I hope everyone had a Merry Christmas. That it was everything they wished for & more. We start celebrating on Christmas Eve at my house. We all had a nice night playing (the kids), hanging out (my sisters & I), & watching movies (the guys).

We ate throughout the night. I serve buffet style since I like to keep it casual. And yes there was a ton of food!!Here is Marissa & my neice Nikki. They're BFF's since they were babies. I swear my sister & I DID NOT plan on dressing them alike!! We only found out after we got each other's Christmas cards! LOL!Here I am all white & patsy faced--I need to live somewhere warmer!! BTW--Marissa took this pic--not bad!The tree with everone's presents....We tried --oh Lord! how we tried!!-- to get the kids to pose pretty in front of the tree, but it didn't happen where everyone was looking or their eyes were closed--you know what I mean!! But when we told them to pose silly we got this. Cute.The closest I could get to my girls posing together.....Then we got this one where they were a bit more cooperative....except my nephew Tyler, who's the only boy in the house (not counting the husbands)....think he was tired of all the paparazzi! There were 3 cameras going off in their faces!!!Miss G being sassy.My sisters & I (I'm the one that wasn't holding my hands all sweet like--I'm a rebel!!)

Looking at this pic I'm thinking we should've tried the "Charlie's Angels" pose....LOL!!!After torturing the kids by making them WAIT to open their presents (we were actually waiting on my F-I-L to get here) we got them the kids in the living room & gave them their pile of presents.

Here's Tyler all ready to go....Gianna all set to tear into her pile.....Nikki & her doll "Angelina" are ready to get their presents open.Here's Marissa doing her "Vanna White" pose with her presents.One of her 1st presents was the HSM3 Soundtrack--needless to say she was THRILLED!!Gianna happy with the Hungry Caterpillar game...Marissa was estatic to get this game...Gianna got a doll to play tea party with her other doll so now she won't have to "borrow" her sister's American Girl doll while she's at school!!

After the chaos was over the adults exchanged gifts. We do a "Secret Santa" so our pile of presents was nothing compared to the kids!

Shortly afterwards everyone left. We gave the girls their Christmas jammies & then they put out cookies & milk for Santa.After the girls were in bed, Joe & I cleaned up everything & brought down our gifts for the morning craziness. Joe had to put together one of the girls gifts so I was bringing down all the wrapped presents, it wasn't quiet to say the least. That's when we heard Gianna say

"I hear Santa!"