Christmas Eve

This Christmas goes down as one of my very best ones ever. I do believe that it is due to the face that I have two precious children to celebrate with. We had a wonderful Christmas eve. We started by waking up and having monkey bread for breakfast (I think this is going to be a new tradition) We then got ourselves ready and went to an early church service. We normally like to go later in the day, but this worked out better for cooking Christmas dinner with my mom.After Church we went over to Nanny and Pappy's put on our comfy clothes and rested, played, and cooked all day. It was so nice to just relax and enjoy the entire day. We ate our incredibly yummy traditional Christmas dinner, cleaned up, and played until it was time to go to bed. We put out milk and cookies for Santa, Nanny read Kade "Twas the night before Christmas" and off to bed so that Santa could come visit! Brad, Kristen, and the girls got there after Kade and Ella were in bed and we redid the cookies and book reading. "Santa" has always rang his bells during the book reading and Ashlyn was so precious this year when she heard the bells. She was ready to dart upstairs and go to bed immediately! While they were getting ready for bed, still nervous that Santa was so close my mom heard her tell Hailey, "This is freaking me out!" Christmas is so magical at their age! With the kids in bed, the adults played games until it was 'safe' for Santa to visit!

 

I had to post this. Kade was tired of holding Ella and threw her down :)

 

I made him try again so I could get at least one picture!

 

Here is the thing, I am BIG on tradition. I hate breaking traditions. Everyone knows it.I am crazy, OCD about them. Every year on Christmas Eve my Mimi read us "Twas the night before Christmas," from the same book. My mom now has the book and since she is now the grandma it is her duty to read. The thing is we couldn't find the book before bed. We looked and looked and couldn't find it. I was PANICKING (you know, like my 2 year old had any clue that she was suppose to read from this one particular book.) We couldn't find it and Nanny had to pull it up on the iPad to read to him. It is funny now, but on Christmas eve...that's another story :) And no Mom, you did NOT ruin Christmas ;)

 

Sweet sisters getting ready for Santa!