It's the Day Before Christmas...

 It's Christmas Eve and Ms. Riley can be found frantically unwrapping presents. Unphased by the names written on the presents, she tore into any package with her greedy paws. We put up with her uncontrolled mayhem for a little while before putting her down for a nap. She napped for almost 4 hours!

Meanwhile little Ali spent her second Christmas enjoying a good book and the attention of her grandpa. She will do almost anything to get attention from her grandpa when he's around. She preferred to watch us open her gifts, rather then tear into them directly. Maybe by her third Christmas she will finally want to do the opening herself!

Photo Circus

 How on earth did we expect to get a quick photo for my parents' Christmas card?! Take a last-minute, evening photo session and add three tired girls, all of whom are wearing fancy silk dresses. Mayhem ensued!

And, I didn't even include any of the photos where Riley is sucking her thumb (who knows why she did that) or where all three girls are screaming and crying. I have a lot of those photos too.

Ri shows me a "touchdown"

Here's the final Christmas Card photo

Peek a Boo

Some unexpected mischief from our little Ali. She's not walking yet but she had no trouble scaling the whole flight of stairs at her grandparents' house!

Early Christmas Cheer

Riley meets Goofy and is pretty thrilled, not as shy as I thought she'd be!

Ali is so happy about meeting the White Rabbit from Alice in Wonderland

Riley fell in love with all the Halloween lights in our neighborhood this year and even snuck out of the house once to see "more lights". So when I saw a billboard showing a photo of Disneyland all lit up for Christmas.....I completely fell for the advertising.

So we celebrate my birthday (and Riley's a little early) by spending long and fun days doing everything at the park, that was allowed with Riley's diminutive height.

The Castle lit up for Christmas

The Santa parade thrills this onlooker

Riley LOVES the Small World lights