PJ's & Donuts for Santa

After the Christmas Eve service & dinner at Chili's, we headed home to get ready for bed! The kids were begging to open one present, so G-Ma let them open a little something that she brought them. (As if she hadn't already given them 10 presents apiece at her house!) We put on our Christmas pj's and put out milk & donuts for "Santa!" Mackenzie put a bunch of Reese's on the plate for him too! This was a wonderful way to end a happy Christmas Eve!

I love my mom so much & I'm so thankful for her! We found these pj's at Target earlier in the day and decided we needed them!

Mackenzie got a nutcracker, Jonah got some ninja turtles pj's, and Madison got some house shoes!

Our kids know the truth about S-A-N-T-A, but we still have a lot of fun with it!

Jonah didn't understand at all why he couldn't have the donuts! What a sad face!

Jonah wasn't quite ready for bed, so he sat and watched the news with Daddy for a while.

Daddy worked on putting Jonah's train table together a few days earlier, but he still had to set up the actual train set, which took a while. I love getting everything ready for Christmas morning!

Christmas Eve Night

On Christmas Eve we went to the service at STBC and then went to Chili's with the Romoser's. It was a bit different because the Easterwood's were sick and Mama Sue & Poppa Don weren't feeling up to dinner either. We still had a wonderful time but we missed them! I love this tradition of spending Christmas Eve worshipping our Lord and having dinner with family & friends. We were so glad G-Ma came up and spent the night with us too! After dinner we drove by the house with the awesome "singing" Christmas lights. It was a great way to end our fun Christmas Eve!

 

Cutest. Kids. Ever.

That's. All.

Jonah was very good during the service. With the exception of apple juice spraying on the lady in front of us! Oh, and the hat...this was kind of the beginning of Jonah's constant obsession with his hat!

Two of my favorites!

Love me some Kari!

We took some pictures and sent them to the Easterwood's!

They sent us a picture back too!

Christmas Eve ~ Donuts & Birthday Cake

On Christmas Eve morning, we slept in and Daddy went to get us Christmas donuts! (He's the BEST!) He saw a very special person there...Santa!! The kids were all in bed with me when he came back with the donuts, and I tried to snap a quick pic before they dug into them, but Jonah just couldn't wait! I love this picture though, of his little hand sneaking in there! This made for a relaxing start to our Christmas Eve. G-Ma and I had to run to the mall and a few other stores for a couple of hours, but then we came back and the girls and I made a birthday cake for Jesus. This is something we have done almost every year, after all...when you celebrate a birthday, you need a cake! I guess you could say we had a very SWEET Christmas Eve!

Daddy said the line to get donuts was out into the parking lot. He took a picture of Santa for us since we weren't there to see him!

Miraculously, we didn't end up with red, green and white icing all over our bed!

The girls helped mix up the cake and decorate it too! We kind of had a little accidental spill with the sprinkles on the cake, so we decided to just cover the whole thing with sprinkles! It was very tasty, too! Happy Birthday, Jesus!

Movie Night ~ The Nativity Story

After we finished with the gingerbread house and ate cereal for dinner (total veg-out day, remember?), we all settled down together to watch The Nativity Story. I wasn't sure how the kids would do with such a serious, grown-up kind of movie, but they did great! Even Jonah sat pretty still and watched most of it! (The popcorn helped!) G-Ma got there not long after we started the movie, so she got to watch most of it with us. I think this was a wonderful way to go into Christmas Eve & Christmas Day...with a very real, visual reminder of what we were really celebrating...the birth of our Savior, Jesus Christ!

Jonah didn't have a nap on this day, so he didn't make it through the whole movie! It was so sweet when he climbed up beside me and fell asleep!