Christmas Eve and Chistmas 2008

I love Christmas time!!! This year was different than any other year, it was the first year that we were all by ourselves. We missed all of our loved ones, but we enjoyed every minute of watching our kids excitement. It was such a great time, but as always nothing goes as planned when you have four kids.

Christmas eve started out with a trip to the doctor and 4 cases of Strep throat, (what a great gift for the mom) luckily we caught it early and the babies didn't show too many symptoms, so they all still felt ok. We were going to carol at a nursing home, but put that on the back burner for next year. Christmas Eve has always been my favorite part of Christmas and has been the time that my family takes to put the entire focus on Christ. I wanted to share this with my babies, so we did almost everything the same as we would have done if we were with family and added a coupled of our own traditions. We started the night by telling the story of Christ's birth and talking with the kids about it. It was such a good feeling to see Ashley and Ethan really understanding what happened and they were even able to retell the story to us.

Every Christmas Eve the kids get to open one present, and it is always pajamas. This year they got a robe to go along with it. They all looked so cute!! Brice looked like a little old man walking around.

































Then came the letters to Santa that they left by the fireplace with cookies.










































We sprinkled reindeer food on the lawn to help lead Santa's reindeer to our home, and so that they could have a snack while they waited for Santa.














Right before bed we looked to see where Santa was, and decided it was time for bed. They all went to bed fairly easy, except for Ashley. She was a little nervous about a strange man coming into the house. We had to keep reassuring her that he wouldn't come upstairs and that we were going to be right there if she needed us. She finally relaxed and we were able to get to bed at a decent time.














Christmas was great! We loved watching their little eyes light up at all of the goodies that they were spoiled with. We took they day easy, wearing our pajamas almost all day long and playing with toys. Jeremy would make fun of me because I would keep trying to pick up and stack the toys, and they would all find there way back out. It was like I was going in circles. Finally I gave up and it looked like a toy store had exploded in our house. Oh well, that is the fun of Christmas!!! Later that day we had some friends over for dinner. It was a perfect day,with only a few things or people should I say missing.