Christmas with the Taylors

Each year Tim and I rotate holidays with our families. My older sisters already had a system in place for dividing their time equally between our family and their in-laws so I just hopped on. Last year we spent Christmas with Tim's family, so this year we spent Christmas with my family. On the years that we have Christmas with my family we still reserve a few days to celebrate Christmas with the Taylors too ~ we are blessed in that they are close enough to do so.

This was the first gift Kennedy opened from Nana and Pawpaw - how over the top is this dress up outfit?!

Check the shoes:

After we got it all on and the little shoes laced up, she then proceeded to open her other gifts while wearing it.

This was Avery's first gift opened and it was a hit!

The Taylors gave Kennedy her first doll house...BIG doll house. She LOVES it - it is complete with all kinds of furniture and accessories that function (tea pot, stereo, television, etc.) so it has kept her really busy! Here are some pictures of her the next morning after opening it - she is positioning things "just so"...she's totally my daughter in that way.

It even has a "Mom, Dad, and two babies".

We always enjoy going to their home church when we are there. Tim grew up in that church so the church family really does treat us like we are their family - it's really endearing. It's nice to hear his Dad preach and his message was especially touching that Sunday - just spoke to me where I was and I was thankful we were there. Here's a good picture I snapped beforehand of the girls with their Nana.

After church we had a traditional Christmas dinner and Great Aunt Kathryn and Grandma joined us. I'm thankful my girls are always loving with them. I can tell they just cherish those moments. Here's Kathryn holding Avery.

and Grandma

Both Grandma and Kathryn contributed "rooms" to Kennedy's doll house.

Each year I struggle with what to get them for Christmas. I mean, let's be honest - at that age you have most of what you need so anything else is just additional stuff. Sometimes we do pictures or calendars, candles or baked goodies, last year I did a plant for both of them but this year I really wanted to get Kennedy involved. My sister Catina taught us how to do knot blankets for my grandparents one year and so we decided to do that for them this year. They REALLY seemed to like them so I was glad.

I have so few family pictures anymore, so I was thankful with Rita offered to take some following church on Sunday. They turned out really cute.

Next up: pictures of my family Christmas...we were there for several days so I'll have to sift through the 300 pictures first. Oh my!