Photo-A-Day #1357

What an incredible Christmas. It is pretty late right now and we had a super long day of gifts, family and food. Eva was a perfect angel all day long. We packed so much in to such a short period of time.

Allison and I couldn’t sleep late we were too excited by the prospect of Christmas day so we were up around 6:00am. Eva woke up at 7:30am. We started with Christmas morning fun upstairs. For about an hour we unwrapped presents as a family, Allison, Eva and I.

Now I know that saying that things took an hour might make you think that we were opening present after present for a full hour but that is not the case. We tried to be somewhat conservative this year. In fact, Eva only received one major gift from us that we went out and bought. She received a few gifts that I received from a company that I did a book review for. I will be posting those pics and a review of the gifts on Read To Me, Dad. No, what I mean is that in that hour we carefully unwrapped gifts with a 1 year old. She is pretty present about what is happening around her but this whole “gift unwrapping” thing has her a little stumped.

It took a while to open each gift. We took turns opening up our gifts. Allison got for me 8 Transformers, Two DVDs and an iTunes card as well as a book called “Pirates Don’t Change Diapers”. We got Eva the Laugh and Learn Storytime Chair, a Nana Star Doll and a Moonman Doll plus Optimash Prime. She also received some gifts in the mail from Allison’s friend Tina (some beautiful clothes) and from Auntie Mo (Disney ornaments and a great Disney Book). Allison got a bunch of little stocking gifts wrapped up and in gift bags. But she also got a big box that contained her very own iTouch and custom iFrogz wrap and custom ear buds as well as an iTunes card. Allison made use of that already by buying the Straight No Chaser Christmas Album. If you are unfamiliar with this A Capella group check this out.

They are pretty funny.

After we opened gifts we had a nice big breakfast then went downstairs to visit Memere and Grandfather. Eva opened one gift and then it was time for a nap. We went on back upstairs and I took a nap as well. At around 12:30 – 1:00pm we dressed Eva in her Christmas Dress and went downstairs for lunch. Auntie Shelby and her boyfriend Tim had arrived and so did Auntie Tara and Uncle Erik (Eck) and Erik’s parent’s Bonnie and Howard. Also my Uncle Richard and his girlfriend Sally stopped by and gave us some nice gifts and they dropped off my Uncle Jim. We had a smaller crowd this year but it was very nice and relaxed.

After a delicious meal at the Kid’s Table, we opened gifts. Eva received some very nice clothes, a couple of dolls and a nice stroller. One of the dolls is a 1985 Cabbage Patch Kid, still in the box. I’ll be packing that away somewhere safe, still in the box. She has two other dolls that she can play with now. She’ll appreciate that one much later on.

We had an excellent afternoon and it was very nice to be surrounded by such a great family.

One of the gifts that we received were shelves from my father. He made some special shelves, “floating” ones to mount in our condo. They have such a cool design too and an ingenious way of mounting to the wall. I will have to post more about these in depth.

We tuckered Eva out but not before getting a chance to chat online with Mimi and Grandpa Dano. Eva got very excited to see them and kept saying “Puh, Puh, Puh” for Grandpa Dano. It was so cute. Christmas was wonderful and I have a ton of photos from the day. I posted them to a Christmas 2008 set on Flickr. (I
ll add descriptions later. Kind of tired and it is nearly 11:30am, more family visiting tomorrow too)