Christmas Eve Presents

After dinner and the nativity, comes the favorite part of the night for the kids...PRESENTS! It's a bit of a frenzy with 9 kids opening their gifts at the same time, but it's so exciting and fun!

Star Wars was the theme this Christmas for Drew, and he wouldn't have had it any other way.

Brady got a video camera.

Grant giving Aunt Suzie a big hug after he opened the NBA and NCAA basketball games she'd given him for the Xbox.

Drew getting ready for the unveil of his big present...

It was the Star Wars AT AT...the only thing he asked for this Christmas. Way to go Grammie!

Even the big kids were impressed. :)

Nativity Take 2

The kids always act out the Nativity for the second time on Christmas Eve. I was cracking up at the costumes this year. I'm pretty sure we had some shepherds/wise men/angels, but it worked.

Christmas Eve Dinner

We have a traditional dinner (ham, turkey, etc.) on Christmas Eve with our family and the Crowders, the kids act out the nativity, and then the kids open their presents from Grammie and Gramps and Aunt Suzie and Uncle Steve. Then, the adults have our gift exchange followed by dessert. It is probably the best part of Christmas. We've been doing it this way for years followed by a sleepover at Mimi's. Last year, when Mimi moved out of her house, we finally said goodbye to the massive sleepover. We miss it, but we're glad we still have the same Christmas Eve traditions to fall back on.

Garrett found these goggles upstairs when he first arrived and wore them all night.

The man table

Mimi with Conner and Tyler

Look at that innocent face...

Nick and Ben look like they're taking an after dinner nap.

Mazee was soooo sleepy after dinner, but she woke up in time for presents!

Kaylee always finds a lap to sit in.

Uh-oh! The true Kaylee shining through.

Not a great picture, but I think it's the only one we have of me at Christmas since I was always behind the camera. Proof that I was at Christmas dinner.

Doesn't she look great for 93 years old?

Cousins

Giving love to the baby bump

Tyler and Steve

Having fun at the kid table

Way too cool for the kid table

Trey loves his food!

It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas...

This year we hosted Christmas Eve dinner at our house. It was so much fun getting ready for everyone to come. The kids were amazingly helpful setting the tables, peeling potatoes, baking desserts, and getting everything else done. I couldn't have done it without them. We set up three tables in our entry way in addition to our dining table to make room for all 26 people, and it worked great. The 12 foot tree in our entry way was Nick's Christmas gift to me, and I love it! We had 7 trees of all different sizes in our house this year. I'm not looking forward to taking them all down.

Don't Forget the Reindeer

We left treats for Santa, so of course we couldn't forget the reindeer. Drew and Mazee went outside in the freezing cold in their pj's before bed on Christmas Eve and sprinkled oatmeal on the lawn for the reindeer to eat. I'm sure the reindeer enjoyed their snack just as much as Santa did.

Cookies for Santa

Drew was completely in charge of the treats for Santa this year. He had the plate ready by 9 a.m. on Christmas Eve morning. He was very excited! He wrote the note all by himself, and I loved the combo of regular letters and bubble letters. I also liked how he cut the note out into the shape of a stocking.

The Elf on the Shelf

My kids really love their Elf on the Shelf. Our good friends the Haskins sent him to us several years ago, and it's such a fun tradition every year. He started off hiding in some pretty easy places this year, like next to one of our Christmas trees. But, by the week of Christmas he was much harder to find usually because he was hanging from one of our light fixtures, tucked into bed in the guest room or one day they even found him playing xbox in the media room. It was a sad day when he went back into the box until next year.

Sugar Cookies

Baking and decorating sugar cookies is one of my favorite Christmas activities. This year we baked and decorated 6 dozen sugar cookies for Christmas Eve.

My Little Ballerinas :)

We were decorating sugar cookies one night and listening to Christmas music. One of the songs from the Nutcracker came on, and before long, Drew and Brady were dancing around the kitchen like ballerinas. I was laughing so hard. I'm pretty sure they don't have a future in ballet. :)