Christmas Celebrations

Sorry it has taken me so long to post these! Christmas is a crazy time of year....

We had matins and liturgy for the Nativity of Christ beginning at 10pm on Christmas Eve and ending well after midnight. With only a late-afternoon nap, Maggie went strong through the whole service, surpassing many an eight-year-old (and many of us adults...) in alertness. I don't have any photos taken during our Christmas service; however, I took this when she finally crashed on Daddy's shoulder and was so soundly asleep that she could be put down:


Being that it was 2am, we went home to go to bed. Maggie, however, did not wish to enter our apartment. We picked her up and carried her in the door, where she stood defiantly with her coat on. When Daddy began to remove it from her body, she flung herself to the floor in what promised to be a glorious tantrum. Our expectations were not to be fulfilled. After the dramatic fall and a very short wail of protest, Maggie was asleep where she had landed:
And there she stayed for a good hour, because every time Daddy came near her to try take off her boots or, in the very least, move her to her bed, she would scream and kick.

The morning was better received by our older daughter than had been bedtime the night before. I think you can guess of what breakfast consisted from the chocolate smear around her mouth -- she is also clutching a DVD of some of the first seasons' episodes of Sesame Street:


Here's another present -- Maggie really got the hang of ripping off the paper this year:


And here's Susannah wearing her Christmas outfit (which reads, "Daddy's little present") and posing with one of her presents:


I'm sure Mommy and Daddy were around somewhere, but we were too bleary-eyed from the night before to bother with taking pictures of ourselves.

When I get around to it, I will post some pictures from "Christmas Day (Observed) with the Baums," having taken place the weekend following Christmas. As for us, currently we are all fighting a cold (even Susannah, poor thing), and we are leaving for Ohio on Friday evening, for the baptism of our little niece, Laurel Annabel Heetland, and returning the following Tuesday. It will be interesting to see how the kids like the car for that long drive!