Christmas 2012 - Part One

We spent the first part of the holidays with my family in Austin. In addition to celebrating Bonnie's birthday, we got to spend some time relaxing at my Mom and Jimmy's house the weekend before Christmas. My Dad also stopped by to hang out with Ava.





Ava also got to open one present early. Can you tell how much she loves her new Smart Trike?!





We celebrated Christmas Eve at my Mom and Jimmy's house. I don't think Ava was ever put down. Shocker!

Mimi even came over to join the festivities for a while.



And I actually managed to get in a picture with my sweet baby girl.

We also started the tradition of giving Ava a pair of pajamas on Christmas Eve. 

She wasn't very impressed ;).

After Ava went to bed, we enjoyed a wonderful family dinner. 

The next morning, Ava woke up nice and early to celebrate. She wasn't really into the present opening, but we did convince her to pull out some tissue paper.  

And she was very excited about all the cool new toys that Santa brought, including some new books...

Which her Uncle Jesse was sweet enough to read to her later. 

Her favorite toy was definitely the singing picnic basket...and the songs are pretty hilarious because they don't really rhyme/flow. For example, "Red, orange, yellow, green, blue, purple...it's a rainbow!" (sung really fast). Ha. 

After a quick morning nap, we headed to Grampsie and Nana's house. The not-spoiled-at-all grandchild got to open even more presents.

She loves her sweet new ride.

As well as her awesome school bus climber.

Ava wasn't able to take a good afternoon nap, and woke up a little crabby...but her Grampsie was able to cheer her up.

She really loved it when he drove her in circles around the house. 

Is there anything cuter than a grandfather walking his baby granddaughter around in her pink Cozy Coupe? I  think not :).

We had such a wonderful time in Austin. It was extra special not only because it was Ava's first Christmas, but also because it will be our last Christmas (at least for a while) spent in Austin. As I mentioned before, we think it is important for Ava to wake up in her own house on Christmas morning, so we will likely make our trip down to Austin the weekend before Christmas from here on out. 

And even though we missed the white Christmas in Dallas, there was still some snow on the ground when we got home. 

And that was just the beginning of our holiday fun. Up next...our celebration with the Shepherds.