The Best Time of the Year

We had a wonderful Christmas week, and I'm going to try my best to wrap it up in one post.  John happened to have the week leading up to Christmas off, so we headed to Orlando with the kids to see the Disney Christmas decorations.  We went to the Grand Floridian hotel to admire the gingerbread house again this year (it never gets old--well, not yet anyway), play in the courtyard, and have lunch.

This is an annual trek for us--to see the photos from last year, click here.  We rode the monorail for awhile to keep the kids happy, and then stopped at Downtown Disney.  We checked out the new Lego statues, including one that was instantly Anna's favorite: 

And stood in the Santa line because Will needed a second visit with Santa to deliver an important message.  Here he is just after telling Santa that "actually, I'm an elf!"  Santa just said, "Okay."

The kids took a spin on the train, and then we devoured an ice cream sundae at the Ghirardelli shop. Yum!

We went to the Christmas Eve service at church on Saturday and then drove around to look at Christmas lights, and then went home and put the kids to bed.  That last part was surprisingly easy, considering how excited they were.  Anna is still fairly clueless about Christmas, but Will was extremely excited to see what Santa was going to bring.  Will claims that he didn't close his eyes at all that entire night ("I kept my eyes open ALL night!"), but he still didn't get to see Santa or his elves.

Santa did come, however:

He even left a special present for Will:

At our house, Santa leaves the majority of presents unwrapped, but we had a few gifts for the kids to unwrap from John and me.  Anna quickly got the hang of ripping the paper:

And she loved the gifts:

Anna quietly ate about ten peanut butter cups before we stopped her:

Will studying his new book about snakes:

After breakfast and playtime, we headed to Orlando for lunch with Grandma, Aunt Cindy, and Uncle Shawn.  The kids had fun with round 2 of gifts---Will scored an awesome big boy bike:

And did you see those pink boots?  Yep, those were from Aunt Cindy and were one of Anna's favorite gifts.

I also tried to get a group picture of us--everyone is looking at the camera, so I count it a success:

On Monday after Christmas, the kids and I headed northwest to visit the other half of the family.  We stopped in Tallahassee and visited with Grandmama, Granddaddy, Aunt Cynthia, and cousins Elizabeth, Curt, and Rachel.  Then we drove on to Blountstown and celebrated Christmas all over again with Nana, Papa, Missy, and Laurie.

Lots more elf-playing....

....and present-opening....

...and picture-taking....

(Missy has a copy of the group shot...but look how patiently Papa and Anna sat for some test shots!)

Anna with her Russian souvenir from Aunt Laurie:

Helping Nana identify everyone in the calendar:

Missy and Laurie model some of their presents.  It's dangerous having a sister who knits.

Anna enjoying her big gift with Nana:

I received lots of fun gifts, but one of the best ones was the gift of some kid-free time.  Nana and Papa have been keeping the kids for the past few days, so John and I have seen two movies and had some delicious restaurant dinners.  We're getting bored with all the peace and quiet around here, though, and will be thrilled to see the munchkins tomorrow. :-)

Happy New Year!!