"Open more presents please"

Christmas Eve we spent in Scottsdale with Dottie, Chuck and Whitney. It was nice to see family and enjoy a relaxed and casual evening at the same time. Grace who for so long broke my heart with her stranger anxiety around Aunt Dottie is beyond over it and refuses to let Dottie (or "Uncle Dottie" as she has started calling her) out of her sight. She helped Dottie prepare dinner by standing on a chair at the kitchen counter and working the salad spinner and then stirring the salad. Too cute!! She opened all the gifts, hers, the dog's, Lily's, Dottie's and Whitney's (not Uncle Chuck's though). To some extent she was just as excited about the opening part as she was about the actual gift part. Again this year Dottie came through with some beautiful hand sewn dresses for the girls and matching hats (which they wore Christmas day... no pictures though. Sorry) Dinner was amazing and the girls well behaved (and the 4 dogs were too!) But my favorite part is the O'Connell family tradition of dessert Martinis... This year, Chocolate Peppermint... YUMMY!!! Oh and Whit, thanks for taking care of finding the recipe for me this year, I was kind of busy this last month...

After driving by "Clark Griswold's" house in Scottsdale (now a Hurley family tradition on Xmas Eve) and enjoying Grace's awe at the millions of lights, inflatables and mechanical holiday dot dot dot... We arrived home from Scottsdale at about 9:15pm, got the girls to bed and Santa/Daddy had to then begin to assemble Grace's kitchen/laundry set... big mistake waiting until Xmas Eve. The darling set came in about 75 different pieces and with about 300 screws, nuts, bolts and hinges. Even with his engineering degree (and Brian has said numerous times since Xmas Eve, thank God he's an engineer) it took almost 4 hours to put together!! He says that the toy has more parts than the space shuttle... But it was all worth it. Even though he did not get to bed until 2am and Grace was wide eyed and bushy tailed at 6am.

Christmas Day...

Grace was up as I said at 6am. She has been sleeping until 7:30am, but on Christmas morning, before the sun was up, we were. Brian brought Grace into our room so that we could split up, plug the tree in and get the video camera ready for her reaction. Well, with a bit of prompting from us... "What's that?" "Did Santa bring that for you?" Grace discovered her Kitchen and her Slide and went to work right away us a pretend Christmas breakfast. The rest of the morning and most of the afternoon Grace said a lot of "Look at that!" "Whats this?" and "Open presents please!"

Uncle Chuck had sent us home with a turkey, stuffed and ready for the oven. So, Brian prepared the vegetables and put the turkey in the oven. Fixed appetizers and set the table. The girls and I got to enjoy a lazy day. After an early movie, Dottie, Chuck and Whitney joined us for Christmas dinner and a continuation of the O'Connell family tradition... More Martinis!! After dinner Kelli and Brian from next door joined us and Grace had a new audience to show all of her toys to... It was a very good Christmas.

The day after Christmas...

Grace has been asking all day to "Open more presents please!" As if that were not heart wrenching enough, she cried when I tell her Christmas is over. I am almost inclined to wrap some of her toys in tissue paper and let her open them... Well, Christmas is only 364 days away... let the countdown begin!