Christmas Eve 2014

Trying to wrap up Christmas posts from last year in February.  Sounds about right.  ;)

Fred's (our elf) last night here for the year and he landed on the TV.  For whatever reason…the girls had been wanting him to land there all month.  THey talked about it almost every day. So he finally gave them their wish.

Just wanted to note….our Christmas tree.

When we first got married and got our first tree and ornaments and such…I decided to decorate in red and white.  It was simple but pretty and I loved it.

Well- last year…I decided to try and fade out the red some…and just go with more white and silver..and added in burlap.  I bought a few new ornaments and left some ornaments out but nothing too big.  I liked it, but figured I would finish up/complete my decorating ideas this year.

Well this year…I decided I wanted to add in gold.  And after I did…it was just all too plain.  The girls had not complained about our decorations..but have always wanted COLOR.  

And mulit-colored ornaments and lights just wasn't something I was accustomed to.  Never in all my years did we have colored lights growing up.  And that's fine and all…I never liked the colored lights and ornaments much anyways.  For Christmas it must be red, green, and white…and for lights…clear.  Period.

Then one afternoon…the week before Christmas no less…I found these multi-colored big round ball lights.  And these colorful ornaments that weren't too pricey and weren't just balls.  And shatterproof, of course.  So I went for it.

I came home that afternoon and pretty much took down every single ornament and the small multi-colored light strands that were partially burnt out.  And I redecorated our Christmas tree.  Geoff laughed at me (in a nice way).  Ha!

And I love it.  

And I also bought some more decorations for 70% off after Christmas and cannot wait to decorate this year!

Ok…onto Christmas Eve…

Breakfast!

We had gotten the girls a Dollie & Me outfit from Kohls…and I saved the small boxes from the American Girl store from Parker's birthday…so I wrapped up the doll clothes separately and put the doll names' on them. The girls were SO excited and had pretty much been asking me every single day if they could open them.  So we let them open ONE present on Christmas Eve.  Theirs and their dolls'.  :)

And Nolan got to open one, too.  (and YES…he is in girl pajamas because we were at my mom's house the night before and my sister gave all the kids a bath and this was all she had).

Parker is such a great big sister (especially to Nolan!).

If I remember correctly…I picked up lunch and we headed to my mom's to hang out with my sister and nieces.  Once the babies were down, we started a little activity that Parker's school had sent home as an option to do over the Christmas break.

I think it will be easier to see the finished product before I explain it.

He school sent home these nativity coloring sheets that you cut out and tape to toilet paper rolls.  So I divided the pages between the girls and myself…and we colored.

Then I cut out and taped.  Then saved them until after dinner when we were going to read the nativity story.

When my sister returned from visiting my granny…the girls rolled out and used cookie cutters to make our Christmas Eve cookies for Santa.

We baked them in the afternoon, but didn't decorate until after dinner.

Paisley!

Nolan!

The sprinkles.  I'm not sure if there are enough?

Poppa read the Christmas story out of  Luke and we used the nativity we had made earlier in the day.

Parker's class memorized Luke 2:15-19…and when Poppa got to those verses…Parker just started reciting them.  Word for word.  I knew she knew it…but it was really the sweetest thing.  Oh how I pray the scripture that she is memorizing now will truly be hidden in her heart!

When she was done, she wanted to go look at the verses in the bible.

Grace loved the nativity.

My sister and Payton.

Then we read Twas the Night Before Christmas.

After we read the book, I loaded my kids in the minivan and headed home.  We set out the cookies and went to bed.  Ready for Christmas morning!