What an amazing, super, exciting, and special Christmas week we had this year. We started off this week by getting ready for Christmas. I had tons to do since I just started shopping days before Christmas but we got it all done by late Thursday night so the rest of the weekend was just about having fun!
Friday both my mom and I were off work so while our men had to work we hit the road and went to visit the Anniston Museum of Natural History. It was fun and Zoey had a great time getting to see all of the stuffed animals. Plus it was a warm thing to do with the rainy cold weather in the air. Later that night we met up with the rest of the family and went to our church’s Christmas Candlelight service. It was beautiful and it was extra special having our little one with us this year. I remember tearing up last year because I wanted our child home with us so bad…thank God for answered prayers!
After church Dana and Jonny both came over for Zoey’s first round of the Christmas gift spectacular. She was very unsure of the whole unwrapping a gift but by the end of the night she was getting the hang of it for sure.
Saturday was Christmas Eve and Eric went to play golf with Jonny and Dra so Zoey and I stayed home and made Christmas ornaments for our family. I thought this would be a quick morning project but I was very surprised at how long it actually took but it was very worth it! I did love getting a day at the house to just rest and relax and spend one on one time with Zoey before the crazy Christmas marathon that followed.
Saturday night we had Christmas Eve dinner at Kendall and Tim’s house. Kendall did a great job hosting the dinner and we enjoyed getting to spend time with my mom’s side of the family. Zoey also very much improved on her present opening skills. By the end of the night she had mastered the concept of knowing just about all the gifts were for her, opening them, and had a system of passing the trash to my dad to throw away. She loved it! We also got a nice surprise when Tim’s family dropped by to Christmas Carol to us. That is a family tradition they have and they are all awesome singers so it was kind of like a mini Christmas concert in the front yard!
On Sunday we had one of the best mornings ever! Zoey slept till 9:00 am and then once she got up we went down stairs to celebrate her first Christmas home. I started crying walking her down the stairs and that was just one of the six times I teared up that day. We are just SO blessed! I am so happy to have the home we live in, the marriage I do, the most amazing little girl home and in our lives. Words can not describe how abundantly blessed I feel!
Once downstairs we let Zoey open her stocking first (big mistake). We filled her stocking up with her two favorite things…post it notes and sour gummy worms. So for the rest of the morning she could have cared less about anything else. But while feeding her another favorite (eggs) we hid the stocking stuff so when she came back she opened up the books and blanket we got her. But her opening is a very slow process so as soon as it was done we took her upstairs to read the Christmas story and put her down for a nap.
Once up from her nap we headed on over to my parents to do Christmas with them and my dad’s side of the family. By that time she knew exactly what to do with presents and was too funny opening each and every one but like I said before she is VERY slow so this process took several hours. Plus my family opens one at a time and discusses each gift before moving on to the next present. I love it! 
We had an awesome day with a great surprise gift too that I will post about later!
Our Christmas Marathon continued when we drove from my parents to Eric’s parents house. There we had Christmas dinner and Zoey got to play with all the kids. The gift giving scene is completely opposite of my family. All the presents were open in 5 minutes tops! Zoey had lots of help by the other little ones! But her favorite thing of the night was playing on Taylor’s pogo stick he got with Aunt Nichole!
Zoey was blessed enormously this Christmas. We are so grateful for each and every thoughtful gift that everyone gave her. All of you are too kind and we very much appreciate everything!
So by the time Christmas Day was coming to a close our Christmas marathon was just beginning because later that night we left to drive to Nashville to spend the night with Eric’s grandparents. We ended up not getting there until midnight so off to bed we went because bright and early the next morning a party bus came to pick all of us up for a day out on the town in Nashville. We started out by doing a celebrity home tour, then stopped off a the Country Music Hall of Fame, followed by lunch down by the river, and then another sight seeing tour downtown. It was great and a perfect way to celebrate Christmas and his grandparents 60th wedding anniversary. It was so kind of them to want to celebrate their anniversary with all of us. Zoey loved getting to see all of her Nashville family as well as meet some family members that she has never met before. We enjoyed getting to hang out with all of Eric’s family and are so blessed to have all of them in Zoey’s life.
You see we had a crazy marathon of a Christmas week but it was a blast! I know I have said it a million times this post but one more time I want to say how grateful we are to each and every one of our family members. Witnessing the love they all have for Zoey is just too sweet. We are so incredibly blessed to get to celebrate Jesus’ birthday by having party after party with our loved ones! I pray that all of you had a great week too! Merry Christmas!!!
