Christmas Eve

This year we didn't travel for Christmas and the experience of spending Christmas Eve at home with Claire at an age where she is really understanding and getting into the traditions of Christmas was so much fun!  We made our favorite homemade Jam Filled Muffins so they would be ready for our Christmas morning breakfast!  I had a great little helper who LOVES to get her hands dirty in the kitchen!

Fortunately her feet did not end up in the bowl, but I won't lie...it did come pretty close a time or two!

Muffins all ready for Christmas morning!  They smelled so good it was hard not to eat them!

We also baked some delicious homemade chocolate chip cookies for Santa.  I didn't have my camera ready for this shot and my iPhone didn't do so great, but I love her expression!

Claire was soooo excited to put out milk and cookies for Santa and told us just where she wanted to put his plate and where he would sit and how many cookies he would like to eat!

Here she is, just SLIGHTLY excited after getting it all set up for him!

I was so excited to put out my Grandmother's Christmas China for our breakfast the next morning.  Growing up I remember always eating on these plates at Christmas time and I loved the feeling of feeding my own family on them.  One day they will be Claire's for her family to enjoy!  Thank you Grandmother, we love them so much!

The table was set for Christmas Breakfast and I had our favorite homemade quiche ready in the fridge so we could pop it in the oven the next morning!  

Sometime during the night a certain elf was very busy building Claire's new car!  Her specific list was a car, Mario and Princess Peach (she is her Daddy's girl!)  At some point Santa came and he was sure to deliver all of her requests! :)

All the work was done and Kevin and I were so excited we could hardly sleep that night in anticipation of what the morning would bring for our sweet baby girl!  What a blessing it is to see life through her eyes and have this opportunity to raise her, that is truly the best gift of all!  Looking back on the holiday season I am realizing just how much this night meant to me.  Being at home and getting everything ready and knowing that all the boys and girls were going to sleep that night waiting for Santa to come down their chimney was so much fun!  It was almost like being a kid again!