Christmas Eve

As I mentioned in the last post, we were very fortunate to have great weather around Christmas.  One Christmas Eve the kids spent hours outside playing. John took them on a few mile walk/bike ride around the neighborhood while I did a ton of Christmas cooking.  It was so nice the kids wore shorts and short sleeves!  That evening when it was time to go to our Christmas gathering, I was determined the boys would wear their Christmas sweaters, but the only way we could do this was if we put the sweaters with shorts!  I'm sure we will look back at these pictures in a few years and wonder why the kids had on sweaters and shorts! Hah! 

Before going to our Christmas Eve party, the kids sprinkled reindeer food outside near our chimney.

 

Sprinkling the reindeer food

Sprinkling the reindeer food

 

Then we headed to Arlene and Wayne's house for the Wade's Christmas Eve Party.  We had a delicious meal and enjoyed visiting with everyone.  Our kids had fun getting to play with their second cousins Corbin, Ashton, Hayley, and Jaxon! 

Nora Kate was excited to sit by Corbin...Corbin was less than excited! Haha!

Then the kids got to open presents!  They had a great time!

Then the kids played with all their new things while the grownups played Dirty Santa!

Nora Kate and Haley

It got really late, but I wanted to get a picture of our kids while we were there.  This was the best we ended up getting.  Sleepy kids!

Dawson

Nora Kate checking out Jaxon's new toy!

 

Perhaps the highlight of the whole evening for the kids was the drive home.  As we were leaving Arlene and Wayne's house right down the road, 5 deer walk slowly across the road right in front of our car.  The kids were convinced they were reindeer!

We got home and it was so late, but we were determined to sit the kids at the kitchen table and read the kids the Christmas story from the Bible.  The kids were even telling us how tired they were so they knew how late it was.  Right as we finished reading the Christmas story, we were reviewing what each person had asked Santa for when we heard bells ringing right outside our kitchen window!  The kids faces were priceless!  They said, "It is late! We HAVE to go to bed! SANTA IS HERE!"  We ran upstairs and got everyone in bed.  Nora Kate's bedtime prayer which can usually be very lengthy went like this that night, "Dear God, Santa's Coming! Amen!"  We didn't hear a peep from the kids until the next morning.  The next day and for about the next week they had to tell EVERYONE we saw that we stayed up so late on Christmas Eve that we heard Santa's bells at our house! 

(As a side note about Santa's Sleigh Bells the kids heard...we have awesome neighbors!)