Worth the wait....

I feel like I say that ALL the time but seriously, this Christmas was soooo worth the wait!

I couldn't WAIT to be a mommy so Christmas would be about my children.  I couldn't wait for little people to come into my life to inject the excitement, hope, magic and kid crafts back into the holiday.  When Natalie was born we expected to have to fake it that first Christmas as she was only 8 months old....so we did. haha  Every year we thought "Ok, this will be the year that she will get that something wonderful is happening."  Every year she didn't really seem to care.  Don't get me wrong, we spoiled her rotten and she had fun in the moment but there wasn't ANY anticipation of anything, no excitement over lights or presents....  We still faked it though ;)  We were building a memory archive for her to dive into when she was ready to immerse herself into this fantastic holiday.  Then Alyssa came....the first 2 Christmas's came and went without much fanfare on her part. Although we still went crazy....you know, just in case THIS was the year they started to remember. 

Then it happened.....this year....this wonderful, glorious, everything I ever wanted out of life year....FINALLY happened and POOF!  Just like that, we have children.  We got faces like this

And this...

This is when she turned the corner in our kitchen and saw the tree for the first time on Christmas morning.

We got children ripping into presents and actually understanding that there were toys INSIDE the boxes. haha

For months if you asked Alyssa what she wanted from Santa she would say without hesitation "CUPCAKE!" or "CAKE!".....every. single. time.  I heard this for at least 2 months leading up to Christmas.  I kept thinking "no, she can't possibly be serious" but I am not kidding when I say that the kid wanted a dang cupcake.  So I got her one of those super sugary, sprayed in food coloring monstrosities that you see in Publix because dang it, if my baby girl wants a cupcake from Santa then she is getting the most obnoxiously awesome one I could find.  To tell you that she was excited was an understatement.  Santa ate our cookies that we left him and left Alyssa and Natalie cupcakes on the plate.  When Alyssa saw them she FREAKED!  "MY CUPCAKE, MY CUPCAKE!!" Insert jumping up and down and clapping of hands here.  

Seriously, you would have thought we got her a car.  We had to stop opening presents so she could eat her breakfast cupcake.  I have never seen a more satisfied child in my life.  It was like for that five minutes all was right in the world.  Everything she ever wanted came to be.  I would give anything to be able to hang on to the power to put that contentment in her eyes with a simple cupcake.  Enjoy it little monkey.

Natalie didn't seem to mind it too much either...

Back to presents.  There were rollerskates to be opened...and worn for the duration of the day. (Natalie's are Tinker Bell....oh yes, we are THAT good)

...and new baby dolls to love...

That was my very first cabbage patch kid.  If you knew me as a child you will understand the poignancy of this moment. I had her sitting under the tree in the same wooden cradle that I used to play with.  I have saved it since I was young in the hopes that I would have little girls to love it one day as much as I did. I put Jillian in it along with all of Alyssa's dolls.  As soon as she noticed the crib, she picked out Jillian as the newcomer right away.

We do Christmas with my parents on Christmas eve and this year they got Natalie a toy that we had seen (and had to tear her away from kicking and screaming) at the Down syndrome conference.  She hadn't seen it since and had probably forgotten that it even existed in the universe.  

She opened it up, saw the photo of it on the box and literally jumped up and down clapping her hands and saying "YAY, YAY!"....We all stared in amazement at this child who has never really acknowledged a present before much less one that was still in the box.  We all stared then I am pretty sure that all of us teared up.  Seriously, I have waited her entire 4.5 years of life for that.  It was by far my favorite Christmas moment and pretty sure it was my favorite present this year.  She makes everything SO worth the wait.

My mom and I spent the evening cutting out snowflakes to sprinkle around the downstairs.  At the last minute this seemed like a fun thing to do.  Little did I know how much they would love it.  This my friends is how traditions begin. 

We spend the few days after Christmas in Bamberg with Cliff's parents.  This year his mom got them little doll beds.  Natalie was particularly enamored with hers.

I love her <3

I have SOOO many more photos to share from their house but if I kept spending my evenings sizing them I might never have gotten this post up.  Stay tuned, I feel another post about family coming on.  To hold you over here is one of Ma-ma playing outside with the girls.

Our awesome "First" Christmas ended with the magic of Christmas snow.  It fell in glorious flakes of holiday awesomeness and kept up all afternoon.  Best. EVER!

Our tree before....

....and after.

All in all this Christmas was AMAZING!  I feel like I have waited forever for one just like it.  We went from two kids last year who didn't seem to know what to make of it all to two kids this year who drank it all in.  I think Alyssa said it best when we were driving around looking at lights one evening when she said "It's Christmas out!"  I couldn't have said it better myself.