Christmas Comes Again

Just when you thought Christmas was over, it was not and you got to celebrate it all over again! Alli, Dad and Heather were so sweet to come to Raleigh since we could not come to Hickory, and we were excited to spend time together.

The first item on the Raleigh itinerary? Ice skating! Collins and Addie were eager to try again, and Nana was nervous because it had been a long time...

Of course, all of her moves came right back to her!

Brian tried to show Addie the basics of skating...

but ended up just doing this most of the time.

We ate lunch at a new restaurant downtown which was very good and then headed home to prepare for our Christmas festivities. 

You would not have believed how many presents were under our Christmas tree. And would you believe that Dad and Heather's were coded by color of ribbon (no tags needed!)? Very crafty. We all opened some fabulous presents including these new dress up costumes for the girls. They were thrilled! I was thrilled with the hour and a half of housekeeping services I received from Dad and Heather and the gorgeous new bag I got from Al!

Dad is known for finding all the latest technologies out there so it was no surprise he and Heather got the girls a really cool portable keyboard...

and new pink headphones!

And to finish things off, Addie being Addie... :)

After congratulating each other on picking out such great presents this year, we moved on to the food portion of the evening. We had a fabulous dinner of smoked turkey, scalloped potatoes, salad, cranberries and a mystery dessert (specialty cupcakes in a mason jar) that Heather surprised us with. The girls entertained us with a brief dance party then it was off to bed for ALL of us. It was a really fun day, but we wore ourselves out with our grand finale to Christmas!