Christmas

Christmas this year was so much fun. Gabbie really got into opening the presents and loved all her new things. We got a ton of stuff at DI (its like Goodwill for all of you guys back east) that was perfect for Gabbie. The look of pure love on her face the entire day made me think how lucky we are to be parents and how pure and innocent children are. It's no wonder Heavenly Father asks us to be like children.

Gabbie wearing her new jammies that she got to open on Christmas Eve.

Christmas morning started with Gabbie opening her presents, then Kyle and I going through our stockings. We have a tradition in our family that we take a certain amount of money and we'll go shopping to fill the other persons stocking. It can be things that are serious or things that are funny and make us laugh. It has turned out to be something that we really look forward to and it helps us to think about someone else more than ourselves. This year, Kyle got a mix of practical, needed things, joke things, and fun things. I got a lot of joke/practical things.

Gabbie is playing with one of her new toys. Its this rocket ship thing that has 4 layers you can take off and re-build. On the bottom is one of those shape games where you have to put the shape in the right hole. She is slowly working up to doing that but she mostly just likes to make it fall apart and then dump all the shapes into the top of the container without fitting them into the right spot.

Kyle got a new BYU hat in his stocking, socks, ties and this lovely elephant balloon that is one of those where you hook the end on your finger and try to hit the balloon as many times in a row as you can.

Gabbie got a new Barney movie in her stocking, bibs, and socks. She also got some bubbles, abc cards, and crayons.

She loves the bubbles...

Gabbie was opening her presents really slow so Kyle decided he needed to show her how to open them really fast.

Opening presents...

Santa brought Gabbie a new frog toy. It's a bouncy ball covered with the body of a frog. She loves it. The whole morning she just wanted her frog. We had to take it away and put it up on the couch because she didn't want to open anything after she saw the frog. (Santa didn't wrap it so she saw it right off the bat)

Kyle's 'faked' excitement for his new Christmas PJs. I was too lazy to wrap them because he already peeked and knew what they were.

Gabbie and Mom showing off Christmas Pjs.

My mom and dad in VA sent Gabs a package for Christmas and in one of the boxes she stuck a picture of my little sister Taylor. Gabbie saw the picture at the bottom of the box and she stopped everything she was doing to look at the picture. She kept pointing at Taylor and then looking up at me as if to say 'Mom, I know her!' It was very special for me because we don't get to see my family that often and Gabbie has only met Taylor twice. Now this picture sits over her bed beside a picture of Kyle's little sister Lacey. Every morning when Gabbie wakes up she will point to the two pictures on her wall and smile.

We had to break out the mittens and hats because it started to snow almost every day. It took so long for the snow to come this year and I was anxiously waiting for it so winter would start. Then when it did finally come, I was ready for it to be spring time after about 2 days of non-stop snow. Doesn't she look so cute in her hat and mittens!

Opening Grandma and Grandpa Campbell's Christmas presents...

Thank you to everyone who helped make our Christmas wonderful. We are so thankful for the thoughtfulness and caring that each of you showed to us and we want you to know how much we appreciated it. We love you guys.