Christmas 2005

This Christmas was all about Alanna for sure. It was so much fun to see her little face light up when we finally got ready to open all of the presents that had accumulated under the tree. True to tradition we put them in little piles for each person in anticipation of doing the round robin opening where each person opens one at a time, but Alanna's pile dwarfed all of ours easily.

When she realized that she actually got to open them, it was pure delight for her. She was so intrigued by each gift that she wanted to spend time playing with each one before opening the next. Even then we had to coax her to open the next one because she didn't want to stop playing with the one before it.

The prime rib turned out divine. It practically melted in your mouth and smelled so fantastic while it was cooking. However, it will likely be a while before I spend $100 on a piece of meat for the holiday dinner again.

The rocking horse was a huge hit. She hopped right on (with Daddy's help) and pulled her pink cowgirl hat off of her head saying "Yeehaw!!". We're not sure where she learned that from, but think we've tracked it back to Sesame Street and the little cowgirl on there.

I was said to see Mom & Joe go. As I've gotten older, my relationship with them has vastly improved. Not that it was ever poor by any means, but it's more relaxed now and adult. More like having good friends over for a few days versus your parents. They were so sweet and brought up my daybed from home, so we redid the downstairs office/gaming room and it's so much more homey and organized now.

Things Alanna got: (or should I say--how the munchkin made out like a bandit)
Rocking Horse
Dora DVDs: Fairytale Princess & Cowgirl Dora
Blue's Clues DVDs
Veggie Tale DVD
Little People House, Castle, Train, Nativity, Santa set
Disney Princess Dress Up Trunk
Clothes (really cute clothes that mommy thought were far neater than she did--yup she's a kid!)
This animal barnyard music piano that will put mommy & daddy in the loony bin
A really neat travel chalkboard
Lots of cool art things including a smock
And many more things that now live in my living room/toy room that don't come to mind at the moment.

Things Jana got:
Beautiful sapphire/diamond three stone ring for my right hand
Tempurpedic pillow
Hand made Recipe Book from my wonderful soon to be sister-in-law (next Friday in fact!!)
Incense Feng-Shui set
Patricia Cornwell book
Cabella's full body wrap blanket
And other wonderful things for the house like sheets, towels, and such.

Things Jeb got:
Dragon Eggs
LotR collector's letter opener replica sword
GeoMags panels set
Monster Manual III for D&D
Frostburn for D&D
Draakar cologne
Pocket Ref Book...COOL book!!
Spiderman 2 DVD