Merry Christmas!

Christmas with a kid is way more awesome.  Now, be prepared for picture overload.  Afterall, I did, in fact, get a new lens for my favorite canon rebel camera and had to try it out.  Be patient, I am still learning.

Steve captured the first smile of the day.  Steve and I woke up before him and opened up a few gifts from each other.  I got the above mentioned lens and Steve got tickets to the Iowa Hawkeyes bowl game.  (okay, to be absolutely honest, he already knew about the tickets to the game - I had to tell him so he could get work off, but it doesn't seem fair to say, "I got this wonderful lens that is way over-priced and he got an underarmor shirt for flag football.")  So, in my memory, I will say it happened the way it is printed above.  :)

(On a side note, this picture also showcases the new green kitchen perfectly.  It is Martha Stewart, "bay leaf" and I LOVE it.)

Please also note that my mom was a professional Christmas do-er. Everything was perfect. The wrapping, the special Santa paper, the orange at the toe of the perfectly filled stockings, everything. Preparing for my first Christmas as a mom, I still can't figure out how she did everything so magical. Seriously. However, I am definitely aspiring to be like her for the holidays. Please bless that my child can feel Christmas the way that I was able to experience it. I can only hope.

He was so excited to see the tree and the adorable little bear wearing a sweater under it.  He just kept smiling and pointing. 

Here is a picture of the bear taken with the new lens.  One with a flash and one without.  The one without the flash is my favorite.  (Jen was right, I totally needed this lens).

He was a natural present opener from the very beginning.  I bought him new blankets and wrapped them up. When he realized it was a blanket, he took it out of the paper, held it up for me to see, and then carried it around the rest of the morning.

I love the tired little face here.

He had seen this little truck in the guest room before Christmas and kept trying to play with it.  I finally hid it in the laundry room so he wouldn't be tortured by it.  When he opened it up, he wouldn't let go of it.  I know he was fearful if he let go, I would take away his wonder-engine again!

With some wooden toys, some toys that made a lot of noise, blankets, books, some trucks, and the token stuffed animal, he seemed like one happy little guy. 

On another side note, every holiday that rolls around makes Jen and I wish we could plan some sort of holiday party like they do in the movies. 

At Halloween, we wanted to have a "Witches party" and have our closest girl friends over for witches' brew and scary Halloween eyeball stew or something.  The problem was that we don't have enough girl friends to make the party a real bash.  We figured it might seem a little weird with Jen, me, Beth and maybe two other friends from yoga dressed up like witches, sitting around talking.  

 At Thanksgiving, we wanted to throw an "as seen on TV" type of gala with matching dishes and holiday cheese spreaders.  The problem with this was - have you met my family?  We don't really fit the mold (and we don't have enough matching dishes to seat 4 let alone 17.).  Jen and I managed to wear adorable aprons while cooking and decided that was movie-esq enough.

As Christmas approached, the movie in my head was playing in full force. For pre-Christmas, we wanted holiday parties with sparkly sweaters and eggnog. We wanted holiday music and mistletoe. Except, that I don't really like eggnog and how uncomfortable would I feel under a mistletoe! (I ended up getting to go to a semi-formal holiday party at a friend's house and was able to bust out my dusty heels. I loved every minute of the festive party, but also watched the clock ticking in slow motion - wondering if we had been gone long enough to actually call it a "night out" without Evan. I missed him from the second we walked out the door and was ok to rush home when I heard that he was crying in the background when Steve called his parents to check in.)

For the actual Christmas day scene, I envisioned my little family opening our one specially chosen present on Christmas eve only to find a pair of new jammies. I could see us getting ready for bed and then placing cookies out for Santa before settling in for visions of sugar plums. Turns out, we opened Evan's new jammies in the waiting room of the Asian 1 restaurant we had been to with the families (Bob and Kathi along with my fam) and Steve and I opened our jammies separately. I quickly put mine on as we got home in order to get Evan back to sleep as soon as possible and Steve opened his in the bedroom quietly in order to make sure the krinkling paper didn't wake him up again. We finished wrapping presents while we watched Elf and totally forgot about Santa needing cookies. HOWEVER, after all was said and done - as you can see, Christmas turned out perfectly.