This is Christmas

Another blog I frequent had a post about a week ago entitled "This is Christmas." And much as I've tried to come up with another title for this post (so as not to be a copycat), I just can't. Because around here...

This is Christmas. At least this year.

Christmas Eve after Santa came.

The girls in their Christmas jammies (which, unfortunately, arrived the day after Christmas).

This was actually a quite relaxed (although quite tiring, due to a certain little someone) Christmas. I spent the week before Christmas in the kitchen baking...gingerbread cookies for the neighbors, biscotti, granola bars, breakfast cookies, chocolate crackle cookies, apple pies, and making hot cocoa mix. I was a mad woman. But it paid off in that Christmas weekend and this week we have had lots of snacks around the house and very little difficult cooking to do. I got to bring plates of gingerbread cookies to my neighbors, and since you can't get molasses here, they were quite taken with the cookies. My apple pies were a hit at our big Christmas dinner.

Cinnamon rolls on Christmas morning.

Lane playing in her new kitchen (which we scored used for $20!) on Christmas morning.

Christmas Eve we went to church and had our big Christmas dinner, complete with a turkey. (I got to bring the carcass home and made turkey broth with it, plus pulled four cups of meat off the bones.) We didn't get home until almost 9:00 and by then Lane was a mess. We got her in bed and then played Santa, setting out her new toys from us, her Aunt Rachel and Uncle Lucas, and all her grandparents. I prepped cinnamon rolls for the morning. And we went to bed super, super late.

A sleeping sweetheart.

Inflatable table and chairs (so we can take it with us if/when we move again).

Sisterly love.

Christmas morning was fantastic, as Lane came into the living room oohing and ahhing over her new things. She played all morning long. We skyped with my mom for about an hour that morning, since she's in Alaska and 11 hours behind us. Shannon went to another church that afternoon and the girlies and I stayed put. I made a super easy crock pot honeyed chicken recipe that I found on pinterest for dinner. We skyped with our families in North Carolina and Alabama on Christmas evening before putting Lane in bed at about 6:30.

Lane's loot (other than the kitchen and table and chairs): an alphabet puzzle (which she's already mastered), new books and dresses from Aunt Rachel and Uncle Lucas, new books from us, a matching game, mittens, and cover-ups for art time.

Practicing cutting all that new food.

And the day after Christmas we tried to start getting back into a normal routine of a kind. Shannon's been back at work (although I have been so thankful that he works from home most of the time). We've visited with a couple of friends. We got Christmas packages from Shannon's mom and stepdad. I've taken Lane on a few quick errands with me while Noel napped (to the park, to drop off a disc of photos to a friend, to the corner grocery store, etc.). I've done a million loads of laundry. We've discussed taking down our Christmas decorations, although that's as far as we've gotten. And we've started to attempt to tackle this thing called real life as a family of four.

I'll keep you posted on how that's going.