Christmas with the Holdaway's

The next stop on Christmas Eve was cousin Alice's house. The Holdaway side of the family has been gathering at Alice's house for Christmas Eve for as long as I can remember.
Apparently, there was fruit on the buffet at Alice's house, and Gabriel LOVES fruit.
Eddie and Stacey are such a cute couple.
The only other kids at Alice's house are Mason and Blake. They sat sweetly with Gabriel and Grace and looked at a Where's Waldo book with them.
You can't have Christmas Eve without gifts, right? Gabriel got a Mater truck from Grandma and Papaw and Hot Wheels cars from Mommy and Daddy.
Grace got a Princess CD player from Grandma and Papaw and a Schnook from Mommy and Daddy.
Here are the Ed Holdaway family members in attendance. As it turned out Brian had a little stomach bug that kept him at home on Christmas Eve too.

Ellnor Christmas

Dan ended up taking the kids and making the rounds to the Christmas Eve parties while I stayed at home on the couch. Their first stop was at Uncle Mark's house to visit with the Ellnor side of the family.
I was grateful that Dan was so willing to take pictures. He got some really good pictures for me . . . like this one of Ben and Grace.
Here are all of the Ellnor great-grandkids with Gramma: Bobby, Amber, Gabriel, Great Gramma, Robin w/ Baby, Grace, Ben.
Barbara tried to convince Grace to eat. I'm betting, that despite the personal invitations to eat, she still didn't eat.
I love how it looks like everyone was having a good time in this picture (Barbara, Grace, and Grampy).

Christmas Eve Morning

We had a nearly-perfect Christmas Eve morning. The kids, Daddy, and I watched Christmas movies and hung out in our pj's. That is exactly the laid back day that I was looking forward to.
Gabriel drank some hot chocolate. He's such a cutie!
I got some cuddle time with our four-legged kids. (At this point a stomach bug had gotten hold of me, and I did not have the energy to get up off of the couch.)
Oddly, these two cuties decided to sit together for part of a movie. How cute are they?

Hangin' with the McAfee Family

We met Sam and Alicia this afternoon at the movie theater to see the new Yogi Bear movie. Ever since we started seeing the previews, we have been excited to see it! The kids have been in love with Yogi and BooBoo since we camped at Jellystone for the 4th of July.
The movie was in 3-D, so we got to wear these totally stylish glasses for watching.
See . . . . I said they were stylish.
After the movie, we wen to the McAfee's house to let the kids exchange gifts. Jake met us at the door with one arm out of his shirt. Silly Boy!
Gabriel and Sam exchanged Transformers. This is Gabriel's first Transformer, and he was excited. I'm so thankful Daniel was there to help figure out how the Transformer works. They are somewhat complicated for a kid's toy, in my opinion.
Gabriel and Sam played Transformers together for a few minutes.
We gave Jake a Sesame Street Chutes and Ladders game. He was so excited to see Elmo.
Alicia gave Grace a make-up set. Grace was immediately in love!
She looked quite fancy in just a few minutes.
Jake got into the make-up too.
Ooooh . . . getting even fancier!
After I had given the Ellnor children the "Ten Minute Warning," they decided to raid the McAfee's pantry. Grace was immediately yelling, "Marshmallows! Marshmallows!"
Of course at Alicia's house, Grace gets what Grace wants.

Thank you, McAfee's, for the gifts! Thank you for hanging with us this afternoon! We had a great time!

She's a Barbie Girl

Mrs. Staci had Christmas with the kids at her house today. She gave Grace this Barbie doll because she thought the doll resembled Grace.
Grace has the best time dressing and undressing her Barbie doll this evening.
After dressing her Barbie to "go to the grocery" Grace thought Barbie should see herself in the mirror.
I love her new-found love of Barbie dolls. I loved playing with Barbies when I was a kid, and now Grace and I can play Barbie together. Thank you, Staci! It was the perfect gift!

FREE Ice Cream!

We ate dinner tonight at Mark's Feed Store. Little did we know that on Mondays from 4 to 7 PM, they serve free ice cream sundaes. The kids were in heaven! You should have seen those grins when the waitress asked if we were ready for our free sundaes. It was priceless!

More Make-up

This afternoon I became the recipient of make over done by Daddy, Gabriel, and Grace using Grace's new make-up set.
Gabriel got a little crazy with the lip gloss. It tasted terrible.
I had jewelry, and Gabriel tried his hand at fake nails too. Unfortunately (or very fortunately), the make-up set didn't come with any glue for the fake nails.
Here I am . . . the finished product with one of my make-up artists.

Schneider's Christmas Party

We spent Saturday evening at Dan's family Christmas party at his cousin's house. It was a fun evening seeing people that we haven't seen since last year. Dan's cousin, Jeff, and his kids were there, so Gabriel and Grace had other kids to play with. They had a ball together.
Jessie, Maddie, Gabriel, and Grace got a mean game of hide and seek going.
Then they just chased each other from room to room. No matter how many times I asked them to walk, they would always revert back to running in moments. It was almost like an involuntary response.
See . . . Grace and Jessie running again. Oh well!
It was so nice to catch up with family we haven't seen in a while.
Maddie, Jessie, and Grace played so well together. Grace was in awe of her older cousins.
Later in the evening it was time for presents. The kids got to open their gifts first.
Gabriel got some cars. Shocker!
Grace got a make-up set.
Jessie and Maddie were immediately intrigued by Grace's make-up. It didn't take long before all three girls were dolled up and fancy.

When 3 3-Year-Old Girls Hang Out at Your House . . .

Snow White and Cinderella become part of the Nativity. Ha!

Lip Gloss

Well, Missy told Grace last night, "I don't care what your mommy says, you can use as much lip gloss as you want." Alright, Missy, you asked for it, and here it is. She used (literally) half a tube of lip gloss this morning at one time. Holy cow!