We'll probably have more pictures to come, but here are two images from our big Christmas celebration today. As predicted, the Chaos Rating was pretty high. But a good time was had by all, and Kate has so much loot we're probably going to have to rent a U-haul to get it all to Mississippi. Where she'll get more loot. Then I don't know what I'll do.

In her stocking, Kate got a pearl bead necklace, which she has been wearing for most of the day. She's well on her way to being high-maintenance.

One of the highlights of spending our first Christmas with a kid who is at least old enough to participate in all the goings-on was getting to observe Kate's style of gift-opening. It involves pulling all of the tissue out of a bag, clapping for herself for accomplishing this feat, and then wandering off to find another bag to unpack without registering the fact that there is a gift at the bottom of all that paper.

The other great thing was that I got to talk to my brother Ryan, who is in Iraq right now. I realized at the end of our talk that it was 1 a.m. where he was when he called. I felt bad about that, but it was so good to hear his voice. We miss him a lot.

So here is the family at the end of a long day of celebrating. Kate still has her necklace on, you'll see. Now she's in bed and Dan and I are probably about 20 minutes away from lapsing into a post-Christmas coma. I hope you all had a wonderful day. Thus ends the December Photo Project. Many thanks to Rebecca for organizing and hosting this. I've had a lot of fun, and I hope you have, too.