Christmas 2010

On Christmas Eve we went to Grandma Great's for her annual Christmas Eve party.  We spent the night with all of our Shelton side of the family eating delicious food and exchanging gifts with Grandma Great.  Rylee got a new book and some jammies from Grandma Great.  She had a lot of fun playing with her little cousins and I even got a picture of Rylee, Kyall and Dawson all together (kind of).

Once we got home from Grandma Great's house Rylee got to open her traditional Christmas Eve jammies.

Christmas morning was so much fun with Rylee this year!  She loved every present she opened and had to stop to play with each one thoroughly before moving on.  The cars and race track were her favorite that morning.  We spent hours opening all our presents and then played the rest of the day with them.  Rylee made the best surprised faces after opening each package.  She was just so happy to finally get to open all the boxes from under the tree.

Christmas evening we went to Grandma and Grandpa's house for dinner.  Grandma made yummy ham and potatoes and Chad made a beautiful homemade apple pie.  After dinner we exchanged presents.  Rylee got an airplane with tools from Uncle Mikey and some new slippers, a book and some magnet dress up dolls from Grandma and Grandpa.

We had such a fantastic Christmas this year and can't wait for next year when we get to celebrate with Baby Brother, too.  Hope everyone's Christmas was as good as ours.  Happy New Year!

Sledding, Santa, and Christmas Songs

Rylee has been loving the snow this year!  Chad has piled all the snow from the driveway and sidewalks into one big hill in the front yard for her to sled down.  Every morning she wakes up and wants to go sledding.

We also took a trip to the mall to see Santa this month.  We were all a little worried because she is so, so shy around strangers.  Last year, at only 18 months old, she screamed the entire time sitting on Santa's lap and was mad at me for days.  We prepared her this year, though, by showing her pictures of Santa and telling her that she would be sitting on his lap and practicing what she would say when she got there.  We were still prepared for a bunch of crying pictures, but she did so great!  She showed him her Jessie doll, looked at him when he talked to her and even answered a couple of his questions.  We were very pleasantly surprised!

As a special present to our Great Aunt Beth, the Sheltons put on a Christmas program for the nursing home where she is living right now.  Chad got up to do his little speaking part and Rylee got to be the angel.  She wasn't sure about being in front of all those people.  She didn't really cry, but she kind of just stood there and pouted the whole time.  She looked very cute, though.  Marci and her six oldest kids, some of Steve's kids, Jesse and Riley also did some excellent music numbers.  It was pretty cool seeing Marci, Trevor, Randi, Ben, Charlee, Tucker and Ryanne all playing Carol of the Bells together.  What a talented family!