Christmas Day around Arlington

After finishing up with all the celebrations at our house on Christmas morning and getting a little play time in with our new toys, we headed to Bubbie and Grandad's, where we had lunch and more present opening! I was a little thrown off because somehow we left the house and I never even considered taking the presents with us, I mean I hadn't even taken them out from underneath the tree or anything - what the heck? So after we got there and unpacked the people from the car, I turned it around to go home to get the presents packed up and in the car. This is my only excuse for only having taken one picture of Christmas there. And that isn't a very good one, but oh well. We had lots of fun - the girls loved seeing all the things that were wrapped up from Bubbie and Grandad and some of their Alabama family too!

The lone picture that is proof we saw Bubbie on Christmas Day! The girls helped her open her new watch from Grandad!

Later in the day, we head back to Gigi and Papa's since Santa likes to visit them with surprises for all the kids too.

I think Jillian was satisfied stopping at the Hershey's Kisses Santa put in her stocking

Meredith was of course super-excited to see that Santa left her not-only the Robot Dog she wished for, but also a Pillow Pet! Jillian got a cute little baby doll that walks and a dog Pillow Pet. Couldn't find two happier girls.
Taking her Robot Dog, who still does not have a name, for a walk

We took a break from nibbling on snacks to have Happy Birthday Jesus cake. Meredith and I made our first one last year, and she chose to top it with a milk cow since "there were cows in the stable with Jesus." This year, she initially wanted to stick with this theme. She sifted through a box of plastic toy animals we had, picking out a dog with brushable hair and snap-on clothes. The day of the cake making, however, she decided to be spontaneous. She wanted to make a manger. Luckily for me, my friend Krista, who is an expert cake maker, happened to stop by to drop something off as we were starting to try to figure this out. She had lots of ideas, most of which, we couldn't execute without a trip to the store. We settled on molding pre-packaged Rice Krispie treats into the shape of the manger and baby Jesus! Meredith added a mini cupcake liner to his head because he would probably need a hat to keep his head warm in the stable.

Not bad improvising, I suppose!
We all sang to Jesus and then the big kids, of course blew out the candles! Happy Birthday Jesus!