In My Girl's World

On Christmas Eve night we had Ella set out some goodies for Santa and his reindeer. We had to be a little stingy with the sugar cookies because her Dadda ate them all... :) I said "Michael, where are the cookies we're supposed to leave out for Santa?" And he just looks at me like "oh no." 

Cookies, peanut clusters and milk for Santa and a giant carrot for the reindeer. Ella also painted Santa a picture, since she can't write him a letter just yet. When I told her it was for Santa to eat, I felt like she really understood what I was saying. She was so excited to leave the treats out.

Ella was in bed by 8 o'clock and Michael and I got to wrapping and putting together her easel and high chair. Michael and I opted not to exchange gifts this year. We have had so much going on with the house, and we've been buying things we need as we realize it, so it felt silly to do the whole gift exchange thing. I ended up buying him a few stocking stuffers (very practical things like underwear and pens... haha) but that is all. 

We finished everything pretty quickly and went to bed fairly early ourselves.

On Christmas morning...

We made some delicious coffee with frothed milk with our new Nespresso machine. Our realtors dropped this off (along with a gift for Ella) as a 'welcome home/Christmas present.' They are the sweetest people on Earth. Around 7 we heard Ella awake her in her crib, so I sent Michael to go get her so I could record her reaction to the presents. *It won't let me post the video here.

This little girly was unphased by the sight of the tree at first, but was really excited to see that Santa had taken a liking to his treats. She looked at me and said "eat it all!" Side story. If you notice the pajama change it's because we were attempting potty training with Ella all day on Christmas Eve, and she had an accident right before bed (before we put her in her night diaper.) We have decided she might not be ready yet because she has a tendency to hold it until she can't hold it anymore and it never ends up going on the potty like we hope. Even when we put her in just undies and place her on there every 15 minutes. Okay, back to Christmas.

Ella opened her stocking first. She was incredibly lazy about opening the gifts... She would rip open one piece and then say "Mama do it!" Hahaha. She just wanted her things with no work involved what-so-ever.

Ella's stocking was crammed full of goodies! The cash came from my Mom and Ella's great Meme. Spoiled little girl! 

Ella didn't know where to look next! 

She would open one present and play with that for 5-10 minutes before moving on to opening another present. I think it took us almost 2 hours total to get everything opened up.

Here are some pics I took throughout the morning...

Here she was when she was all done. Next year I am going to do less 'stuff' and hopefully more experience gifts- aquarium and zoo passes etc. I pray by next year we are able to do more things like that... :)