Christmas 2015!

Here's what our Christmas Eve house looked like:

I'm baking sugar cookies and whipping icing to decorate later with the cousins, getting the ham ready to put in the oven, I've got potatoes going in the crock pot behind me and the house smells wonderful!
We took the kids bowling~ sort of a little tradition over the past few years. It's fun to get out and burn off some of this excitement energy!

It's getting exciting!

Finally the family arrives! This is it, folks~ there is no more waiting. It's here!!!
We had a wonderful, delicious dinner with Granny and Grandpa Taylor, Grandma and Grandpa Geertsen, the Whitmores, and Cade and Ashley and family. It felt so festive to all be together and there was much excitement in the air! These are times to be remembered, for sure!

After dinner the kids iced their cookies to take home.

Then we had our Christmas program~ we took turns reading through Luke 2, as each child took a turn adding to the Nativity. Afterwards we watched it together.

This is the best night of the year to have the house packed full of love and excitement and just being together. I will cherish these busy and exhausting holidays!
After the family left the kids opened their gifts from each other. I found it to be so sweet that each one wanted to be so generous and seemed to know exactly what to get each other. Then they opened up their Christmas jammies!

Paisley spotted this ginormous dog at Big Lots and had her heart set on giving it to Zeke. Besides being $30, it would take up the whole room! I tried talking her out of it and suggested other small toys. She would not be swayed. I at least convinced her to think on it for a day or two. She had made up her mind and couldn't wait to go back and buy it. What to do? We had to hide it in Jon's office. It got the exact reaction she wanted. Zeke loves it, has named him Bongo, rides him down the stairs while giving the cutest giggles, and sleeps snuggled up on him every night.

Zeke gave Paisley a doll electrocuter thing that makes her hair stand up (she had her eye on it and loved it), the big boys gave each other the other Nerf gun they couldn't decide on, much to each others delight, and they all loved their new footed jammies! Cozy-cozy-cozy!

We set out the cookies and milk and carrots on the Christmas plate and red goblet and the kids crashed pretty hard pretty quick ;)
Jon and I took a little breather and went outside to enjoy the peaceful Eve. A second wind, if you will.

We woke to a magical Christmas morning! It's HERE!

I really liked having the tree in the family room!

Even the front room had goodies galore!

I reached my goal of staying in jammies and doing nothing for two solid days. But then just had to go out to get myself one of those new coloring books. (I still stayed in my jammies) I was surprised the store was so crowded and started getting sucked into the sales with everyone else- but stayed the course and left with just my coloring book and hurried back home to the sanctuary.
My favorite part~ The Christmas contentment, movies, playing and mess. Just being together and having nothing to do, and no meals to make. It's the best!