Christmas...Let it Begin!

Justus woke up at his usual 5:56am. Neil and I were still in bed hoping he wouldnt wake until much later. But up he was and that meant Neil got to get up also. Justus was excited to see all the presents he had.

Because he got up so early, Neil let him open a few stocking stuffers while the girls were trying to get up.


Soon after I rolled out of bed. 6am is just so early. Too early for me. But because it was Christmas I did my best to be prompt.

Did you see this? I woke up and looked out my window and this was what greeted me. I had Neil run out and take a couple of pics. I thought it was a pretty amazing gift from God on this special day.

Haven woke up and ran to see what Santa had left for her.

Had to start my morning with a little Starbucks. 6am is awfully early for me!

Got to Gigi & Papas. We ate our breakfast - please note Neils breakfast of Champions. Chocolate covered nuts and milk. yum! And my disclaimer - please dont think we ate breakfast first. Just seems we should have eaten bfast first.

We opened presents - what fun!!

Had Christmas lunch and played some more.

We started our family opening gift time with Neil reading the Christmas story.

We got to open the gifts at our house from Santa, Grammy/Granddad & Aunty Katie/Uncle Jeff

We ended the day with fun family times!
Merry Christmas!!

Christmas Eve

Our Christmas Eve has been well spent. Its been very cozy and relaxing being at home all day and not having to be anywhere. So what, you may ask, did we do with our time. Well, let me show you:

First we had a Lego building marathon that lasted all day. Really it started last night as we organized all of Js Legos into bins based on color. We did this in anticipation for his new ones from tomorrow. But still it took quite awhile to find the right Legos to build stuff.

Then we had a little time for dress up. J was a knight and Haven a pirate. She does make a mighty cute pirate if I do say so myself. And J, always dashing!



After dinner it was time (for the boys) to run around with the Lego fliers that were made earlier while H quietly colored - well, stickered is more like it.


We had plenty of time for hot cocoa and candy canes.
What a great day!! Cant wait for tomorrow!!

Kids Christmas Party

This is my 2nd (possibly 3rd) annual Kids Christmas party. I love to have parties and make memories for my kids.

All my parties have the same structure:

Craft time - This year we made Santa Ornaments out of the kids hands

Decorate Cookie time - Last year I had the kids do their own cutouts but this year I opted only for the deco part



Story time - We must reinforce the True meaning of Christmas. We sang a song, read a book, read from the Bible and talked about Christmas. I accidently picked up the wrong book so my transition from traditional Christmas to Jesus Christmas wasnt as smooth as it was in my head.
Please notice the lack of attention given to the story teller. Maybe its my style, maybe its that mostly its boys (Friend Whitneys girls are sitting nice and quietly). My kids certainly acted like theyve never had to sit still before - oh my!!

Lunch time - Potato soup for the adults and an assortment of Christmasy food for the kids - including wreath bagels with cream cheese.
Followed by cookie eating time


Oh, we also played games mixed in there somewhere - we played Hot Reindeer and Pin the Nose on the Snowman

My kids always end up having meltdowns from all the kids/stimulation, but I think the overall memory will be of fun times with friends! Lets hope so anyway ;) Merry Christmas!!