Christmas Eve

Christmas Eve was a busy one for us this year! After a long day of baking the day before, we woke up and had a little house cleaning to do!

Then, we let the kids choose one gift under the tree to open!  Addison opened up her gift from the Ladners, which was a Barbie!

 Tyler got a wooden tractor from the Ladners! (Thank you!!!!)

 McKenzie got a nice big gift card to spend wherever she pleases...

 And Trevor opened a set of Curious George books that he couldn't wait to start reading from his aunt and uncle and cousins from Alaska!

 Nick got a beer bottle opener/hammer from the Ladners
(can you see the excitement on his face?!)

And McKenzie got me (the photographer) a lovely little package of Delicious chocolates! (She knows me too well!)

We went to our church's Christmas Eve service at 3, then came home, changed, and loaded up the van with ham, cookies and kids, and headed over to our friends house.  We dropped off the kiddos and food there and then jumped in our friends car and drove down the road with them to ANOTHER friends house for a lovely Christmas Eve cocktail party! Complete with a Jersey Santa! "Eh! Ho! Ho! Ho!"

Then it was back to Jim and Felicia's for dinner! Jim put olives on Addison's fingers...

 

and when she didn't want to eat them... he did! Which, I think, surprised Addison a little!

 

We had lots of squishy face photo opps!

 

We had quite a spread of delicious food, that we ALL ate too much of, including a fried turkey, a ham, delicious salads, and pupus, and of course, wine!

 Trevor and McKenzie were off enjoying their friends the entire night, so besides the occasional drive by cookie grabbing, we didn't see much of them!

 Addison brought along her Barbie and had a blast talking to the dogs!

But it wasn't long before we had to head home to get  ready for Santa!  Tyler and Addison crashed in the car before we got home, but Addison woke up long enough for Grandpa Bob to read "Twas the Night Before Christmas".

Growing up, my dad always read this to us before we went to bed on Christmas Eve, and he has continued this tradition with our children.  Since we were not in Iowa last Christmas he and my mom got the kids the recordable book with my Dad's voice reading the story!  So now, we can still carry on this tradition even if we aren't back home! I absolutely love it, and so do the kids!

 Then the little ones picked out some cookies and milk for Santa, and some carrots for the reindeer (Trevor made sure we had 9, so each of the reindeer... including Rudolph, would all get one)!

 Then we placed them by the fireplace.... and when Addison made sure they were just so!... we all went to bed!