Twas the night before Christmas...

Twas the night before Christmas and all through the house not one person was out of their jammies until 4:00 p.m. Don't mistake that for laziness. We made time for a little bit of snugglin' but we definitely had a full agenda on Christmas Eve.

First on the list, make cookies for Santa. Lesson learned a few years ago to get that out of the way on Christmas Eve...maybe one year I can even get it done earlier. My fear is that if I make them too early, we'll eat them and poor Santa won't have any!

 

Landry was the happiest spectator there ever was. I can't wait for her to join in on the fun.

Note to self, put tape over all the holes of the sprinkle container except ONE! That is plenty! Those were the crunchiest iced cookies I've ever tasted. After hours in the kitchen preparing for Christmas dinner at our house and Christmas Eve at my mom's we finally showered and got out of our pajamas.

Next up, Christmas Eve service at church. It's ain't Christmas Eve without it.

 

Multiple times this Christmas I think back to last year and we weren't even pregnant and here we are with this adorable, beautiful baby girl and I'm amazed again at how blessed we are and how much our lives have changed in just one year. God is so good. Can I get an AMEN?

I'm a sucker for candlelight services. I'm the one that is choking back tears every year as we sing "Silent Night." Throw in my children singing with candles in their small hands, with the candle glow on their faces while I'm holding and staring at my beautiful baby girl, and I'm a blubbering idiot.

We usually get a picture in front of the tree at church, but our children Campbell was fading fast so we settled for the advent wreath. Aaaand this is the best we got.

 

 At this point, all I've eaten all day was breakfast and the few things I snacked on while cooking in the kitchen. My stomach was growling that embarrassing growl it does in church when you can only laugh because it's so loud. 

Next up, my parent's house for homemade Mexican feast....tamales, enchiladas, beans, rice. Let's just say that I made up for being so starving and won't divulge how glutinous I was. It's too shameful.

 

For the past two years, Nolan has dressed up like an elf. He's finally grown out of his 3T shorts...skinny bean pole. So this was the closest he resembled an elf this year. 

 

And I couldn't help but join in too. My dad sets up a Polar Express train under the tree and the boys literally sit and stare at it forever. They toot the horn and I just cross my fingers that they don't get that train off the track.

As an extra special treat, my grandparents came down from Amarillo and we got to spend the most time with them that we have in years. I loved that Great Grams got some time with Landry and Landry was so happy to be held and snuggled by everyone.

We finally made it home and my children were still going strong even though it was 10:00 at night!
I was so grateful to have happy children. Happy children = happy mama!

We let our kids open one present on Christmas Eve and it's always a new pair of jammies. This year I actually found some that matched! That's hard to do now that Nolan is in big boy size!

Landry even got a new pair of Christmas jammies and so did Justin. Could this picture be any sweeter? I'm running out of room on my walls because I have so many favorites now!

Once we had everyone in their jammies, we made a mad dash to get cookies, milk and reindeer food out. Notice how Campbell took the opportunity to sneak in my sprinkles before putting them on Santa's plate.

Final bedtime for the boys? 10:30.  Then we had to make sure they were really asleep before getting everything out. We had everything set out and then discovered at midnight we had another bag in the closet that hadn't been wrapped yet. 

Lovely. 

Thank goodness for gift bags and stockings. The rest of the things were thrown into the Santa pile (Santa doesn't wrap in our house). 

My favorite part of the night (besides the candlelight service, of course) was on our way home from my parents house, we were on the lookout for Santa and Rudolph. I saw a red blinking light in the sky and did my best Academy Award winning acting about it being Rudolph. The boys were eating it up, going nuts and even talking about how they could see it moving. Guess they were just falling for the illusion of our car moving. 

Little did I know, that blinking light was getting closer and closer as we traveled. As we got closer, Nolan says, "Hey, that's just a tower!" RATS! Campbell starts somehow thinking that Nolan tricked him so he says, "NOWAN (as he lovingly calls him), STOP tricking me!" It was such a funny moment and I just loved how magical these years are. 

I don't think I've ever been so exhausted after Christmas as this year but again...Christmas didn't disappoint. I'll catch up later on sleep....someday long from now. But these memories? They're what feeds my soul.

More Christmas coming soon!