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We always celebrate Christmas with my family on Christmas Eve. We really enjoy this as it takes a lot of the busyness out of Christmas Day. We were fortunate enough to have the new room carpeted the Monday before Christmas (we'll do those pictures later) so that allowed us to spread out a bit more on Christmas Eve.

Our day looked something like this...

You know that little Amelia...she just couldn't resist trying to rummage through the bags that Grandma brought. This is only her first Christmas....I don't know what we'll do when she's 3!

Grandma and Grandpa got the girls a kitchen for Christmas. This is something that we had wanted for awhile, but we just didn't have the space. The new room is the perfect place for the new kitchen. It has gotten a lot of use so far!! Grandpa and Daddy were back in Amelia's room for a couple of hours putting it together before Christmas. The girls kept asking what they were doing! It was cute.

Final product:

Uncle Andrew just couldn't contain his excitement as he walked around the corner to see it!

This is the girls seeing it for the first time...Claire was excited. I'm pretty sure Meredith was in shock :)

As with most babies, Amelia had a lot of fun eating the paper and...

...chewing on the presents.

The girls had a lot of fun opening the presents that they had wrapped for each other...mainly items regifted from the toy box and bookshelf. Claire especially liked this library book that Meredith had "given" her. We had to return it yesterday :)!!

And, really, what would Christmas be without Josh falling asleep while opening presents? :)

Thanks for all of the fun Christmas Eve memories! It was so much fun hosting, and I hope we can do it again next year (mom's going to go for it, I'm sure!). We ate a ton of good food...possibly a bit too much...watched Christmas Vacation....and ended the evening at our Christmas Eve church service. I can't think of a better way to spend Christmas Eve. Love you guys!