Christmas Eve

Christmas Eve was busy, but so much fun at our house! For the last four years, we have opted to stay home for Christmas. Sometimes we miss being in Idaho or Texas, but with five kids and all of the presents and luggage and the thought of traveling with everything...it's enough to make me want to scream! So we do things pretty simply and for four years now it has been great.

We've planned for over a month to eat breakfast at Kneaders on the morning of, and then do a little shopping or last minute errands with the kids right after. We were all excited because we LOVE Kneaders. But it turned out that so did the rest of the town. The line just to get inside was wrapped half way around the building! We took one look and said "Nope." So we drove to IHOP but still had to wait 45 minutes just to be seated. So "breakfast" just about turned into "lunch", but it's okay because we had a lot of fun and the kids were SUPER hungry by the time the food came. Then we took the kids to do their shopping for Mom and Dad because they hadn't had the chance to earlier in the month. 

We spent the afternoon doing last minute touches on Christmas Eve dinner, wrapping presents, etc.  And the kids did a lot of cozy Christmas movie watching in the basement family room.  And did I mention we had a WHITE Christmas?  We haven't had a white Christmas in three years!  When we left for breakfast that morning it was "jacket" weather.  But by the time we left Target and were loading people and bags into the car, the air was windy, freezing, and white!  The predicted storm was blowing in at full force.  By mid-afternoon everything was a beautiful blanket of glittery white.

Garrett and Devin had been up late with piddly naps all week, and they were about out of gas!

Ethan and Hailey made place cards while I got dinner finished up.

Then it was time for the annual pictures with stockings.  This is a fun tradition because each year we see how big they've gotten in relation to their stocking!

Garrett was being a real toot.  Every time I'd hand him his stocking to hold, he'd say "Uh uh!" and throw it down.

As always, the kids did their totally irreverent reenactment of the Christmas story.  The little boys just ran around causing trouble the whole time.  Hailey was the angel, and the donkey.  Ethan was a shepherd and Joseph, and Lauren insisted on being Mary and having a baby GIRL Jesus.

When it was finally time for bed, the three big kids camped out in the girls' room upstairs and the little boys slept in their own room.  I hung Christmas lights all in the girls' room and it was a fun treat for them.  We were sure they would take forever to fall asleep, but we didn;t hear a peep out of them after we said "good night".  I think it was a combination of exhaustion from many late nights and also the threat of Santa skipping out house!  And then sometime around 1:30 in the morning, Santa came.  And let me just say that his helpers were extremely tired!!!