Christmas

It's Christmas!

Merry Christmas to you & yours! :)

It's our first Christmas and we are very happy and excited about that :)

Here we are in front of our lovely Christmas tree at 12:16 a.m on Christmas 2010!

It has a few less presents under it in this picture than it did a short few hours ago when my family was over for our Christmas Eve tradition of exchanging gifts we've gotten for each other. We do the in-family gifts tonight and the "Santa" gifts tomorrow.

Tomorrow we will wake up together for our first Christmas in our house just US :) We decided to do that this year, but in the future we may stay at one of our parents houses on Christmas Eve, we'll see. Then after we have a little time here, we are heading to my parents' house to open the "Santa" gifts, then to my dad's parents' house to do lunch and Christmas with that side of the family, then out of town we go...to my mom's parents' house for dinner and MORE Christmas with the other side of the family. 

It's a whirlwind day that we repeat twice a year (Thanksgiving and Christmas) although, it is a little different for us this year being married! 

We love it. 

We love each other.

And that is what celebrating Christmas is all about...the LOVE that came into the world in the form of a little baby named Jesus that we remember at this time of year. 

I pray everyone enjoys the holiday festivities--Christmas and New Year's, too! And that everyone stays safe! 

Here are a few more pictures we took over the last few weeks, most are from tonight...

Our friend Annie not only MADE our bow, but she put it on the tree before she left E.City, too! :)

Us in a snow earlier this month :) one of the THREE so far in winter 2010!

And this was the picture of the tree BEFORE we started opening presents tonight!

A couple weeks ago, right after we set our tree up for the first time:

    

 And tonight, Christmas Eve:

Sorting out presents...

 

It took forever to get them all to stop eating, talking, etc...and SMILE! 

But when Joe finally got in there...success! I love my beautiful family!

Kara says, "Daddy rub my back!"

And now *almost* all the family has gone home...time for some Christmas early morning hour pictures....

 Ahh, but one "member of the family" remains..

The "adopted" brother, Daniel :) 

He's one of many we've adopted into the Pipkin/Cartwright crew! 

New Orleans ornament...special memories!

Mistletoe Ornament! MUAH!!

And the Snowman Ornament Grandma Peggy got us from Niagara Falls! 

These are just a few of the many...but for some reason, this day I decided to take a picture of these. :) 

Oh and tonight we watched Dennis the Menace Christmas & a veggie tales Christmas movie in addition to opening up our gifts. 

 This is a random post, but I've been doing many things while posting...and it's Christmas! So, I'm not putting one more minute into it...I'm going to snuggle with my HUSBAND on CHRISTMAS, for the first time ever. 

Good night & Merry Christmas everyone!