Christmas

 

Right before we left for our Christmas Eve festivities, Christmas Eve Steve (which is really our neighbors, the Hickmans) brought Lila and I matching necklaces to wear. She was delighted!

Aunt Heidi is the best and had the idea to take all the kids an hour before we started our normal Christmas Eve stuff and worked on a little Christmas service project with them. They made hearts to tuck into the Christmas gifts Heidi and my parents delivered the next day at a nursing home nearby. The kids loved the project and Ben and I appreciated getting a little headstart on our big Christmas project/gift for the boys! Right as they were finishing up though, Davis fell asleep right in my mom's lap! He rallied and was pretty energetic the rest of the evening!

We did games and our traditional talent show- I love both of these traditions. The kids loved playing telestrations and they were so funny! For the talent show Chase played his amazing piano piece of Greensleeves/Carol of the Bells. Hudson did a yoyo routine to Christmas music (also carols of the bells). Davis sang a song from his first grade program, "Christmas Cookies and Holiday Hearts". Lila folded a baby blanket. Nora and Anna sang the most beautiful Christmas song. It was all just really sweet and so fun! We had our beautiful candlelight dinner and then our crazy gift exchange. 

After gifts, my mom gave the kids sleeping potion, This was our tradition growing up and was always so sweet to drink this yummy, hot sleeping potion every Christmas Eve. I've sadly neglected to carry on the tradition, so we did it at Nana's house. Davis is demonstrating it's effectiveness (he's faking).

We sang to Nana and had cake and ice cream. Heidi and I made this cake the night before (mostly Heidi did it) and laughed so hard I was crying at how difficult it was. 

Lila couldn't even be bothered to come over for cake- she was too excited about playing with her new barbies. I love the look of Christmas overstimulation in her eyes!

We came home and tucked the littles into bed and Ben and I got to work! His grand idea was to create a whole experience for them in the basement playroom- a rock wall with monkey bars and a trapeze! We finally got it all finished around midnight and got to bed at 1:00. I was so tired, but honestly it's a fun little memory now!

The kids were up so early, but were perfectly obedient about staying in their rooms until 7:00 (I started hearing doors opening around 5:00!) They were all so delighted with their gifts! Somehow I took no pictures of Lila, but Santa delivered the Barbie Dreamhouse she'd been wanting and we couldn't really separate her from it the rest of the day!

The last gift we gave them was a puzzle, telling them to go check out the playroom. They were all ecstatic when they saw it. A LOT of Christmas break was spent conquering the rockwall and monkey bars! 

I had to laugh that Davis thought this spot on the stairs was the best place to put together a complicated lego set. 

We hosted Christmas dinner at our house. Ray, Diane, Nathan, Jens (Ray and Diane's elderly friend), my mom, dad, and Heidi all came! Ray and Diane brought their gifts for the kids- we all laughed when they got Davis a real hippopotamus for Christmas, just like the song from his program. He was immediately named Harry and is much loved. 

Davis goes hard on holidays- and then crashes. This was a few mintues before dinner started. 

Wow- it was such a good Christmas! Of course, I was exhausted by the end, but we made so many happy memories with our people and I was so thankful for another wonderful holiday!