Christmas Eve

I am SO behind on my blogging.  I've got NYC posts ready to be put up, but I wanted to go ahead and share our Christmas.  I'll get back to the NYC stuff next week. :)  Get ready for a Christmas-picture-overload!

This Christmas was 100% different from last year.  Last year Kate was just 4 months old and honestly, she pretty much "missed" Christmas because she slept through the whole thing.  Not this year.  She is a ball of energy.

We spent Christmas Eve and Christmas day at my parents house.  My parents have an oyster roast on Christmas Eve, so we spent some of the morning getting things ready for that.  Of course Kate had to lick the spoon from the Chocolate Eclair.

And then, as was my tradition growing up, she got to open ONE present on Christmas Eve.  

My parents got Kate a baby doll (or as Kate would say, a bebe). 

I LOVED Kate's face when my mom and Kristi got it out of the box and she could really see that it was a doll...

Later that afternoon she opened up her last Christmas book.  I have loved this new tradition, and hope Kate enjoys it for many years to come.

And of course, as is tradition, our friends Jillian and Jonathan stopped by with their little boy, Bennett.  Bennett is about 2 months younger than Kate and it was so fun to see them actually interact together this year.

They pretended like they were at a middle school dance... aka- they "hugged".

What a difference a year makes!

Christmas 2011

Christmas 2012

And then it was Kate's bedtime!