christmas eve celebrations

Christmas Eve was especially fun this year.  In addition to our usual celebrations, we added 2 new traditions that I hope we continue.  This year, in the morning, we took Will with us to deliver meals on wheels.  I think the girls will be ready to join us next year, but since this was our first time to do it, we decided to bring just ONE small child this year.  :)  It was a great experience, and Will loved chatting it up with the sweet people as we delivered meals.  

The second tradition we started was letting the kids open one gift on Christmas Eve afternoon.  Christmas Eve night and Christmas day are so busy and sometimes a bit rushed as we try to make it to everyone's house with 3 crazy kids, so it was fun to let the kids open one thing outside of the chaos.

Elsa dresses!

Will was especially excited about Spot It!

Then we headed out to Grandpa and Mama D's house for our first celebration.  It's so fun that the girls have gotten old enough that we don't have to leave super early and miss all the fun.  They all had a blast opening gifts and playing with everyone.

Best chair ever!  {while wearing new singing dresses!}

Intense concentration on a game of catch with Aunt Jordan

 The girls enjoyed the new fire truck too!

The girls and I left a little bit before Matt and Will, so they got their baths and went ahead and set out our milk and cookies for Santa before bed.  This is the first year they understood what was going on, and they were so excited to bring everything to the fireplace!  

thumbs up for a job well done!

And I made Will sit for a picture when he got home, because, well...he had on an elf hat!

Merry Christmas Eve!!

29 again!

What a fun anniversary of my 29th birthday I had this year!  The kids spent the night before my birthday at Mimi and Duke's house so that Matt and I could enjoy a night out.  We had a fun dinner at Max's Wine Dive {fried chicken and wine, yes please!!}, and then we went to see Alex & Jonathan's band, The Royal Beatdowns, play a show.  Such a fun night!

I only ended up with one picture at the show, but it documents the brotherly man-beards.

We got to SLEEP IN the next morning {my only real birthday request}, and then headed over to my parents' house for brunch, or as Matt likes to point out...technically just a lazy breakfast at lunch time. Mmmmmmm....my favorite.

It's not easy to get a good picture with this crew.

Caroline was very interested in taking pictures with me on this particular day.  :)

Will decorated my birthday cake with 34 candles {he apparently didn't get the memo about me only being 29} and lots of sprinkles!  YUM!

One of my presents was the stable set for my Willow Tree nativity....LOVE!

And that evening we took the kids to Vitruvian Park in Addison, which Matt found.  It's a big open park with lots of brightly colored trees throughout. Such a perfect birthday activity, since I LOVE looking at Christmas lights.  This was especially fun because the kids got to get out of the car and run around the park.  They had a blast running from tree to tree and seeing all the colorful lights.

The pictures can't even do it justice...so pretty and colorful!

We only had one child nearby when a nice couple offered to take our picture, but I promise the other 2 were there too.

What a fun birthday!!

gingerbread fun

One of our fun holiday activities this year was decorating gingerbread {graham cracker} houses and giant gingerbread men.  The kids LOVED decorating with {eating} the icing and Christmas candies. And I was pretty impressed with some of their work!

Our first attempt was making tiny gingerbread houses.  Because it was an impulse activity, and I didn't want to take 3 kids to the store with me to buy the supplies we actually needed, we made them with items we had on hand....graham crackers, store-bought icing {that doesn't really ever harden}, candy, and random halloween marshmallows.  So to say the houses were a bit unstable and odd looking would be an understatement, but we made it work and had a blast.  

And just a few days before Christmas, we busted out the giant gingerbread man kits that Uncle Alex and Tiffany gave the kids at Thanksgiving.  SO fun!!  These came with icing and candy, plus we added some fun Christmas candies we had.  It was really interesting to see the different styles the kids had for making these.  I love how their personalities are so different and fun.

getting started...

Caroline started by piling all her icing and candy onto the gingerbread man's face...and then added a few finishing touches to his body.  :)

 Emily was very diligent and asked me to help her put the icing on specific places while she was decorating.  She wanted hers to be perfect, including eyes, nose, mouth, and hair.

 Will did a great job on his, although he really just wanted to get it finished so he could eat it!

I even got to make one!

And everyone's favorite part....tasting their masterpieces!