Christmas Eve

I really love Christmas Eve.  It has always been my favorite part of Christmas.  (Although now that I have kiddos that are getting in to it, Christmas morning is creeping up there!)

We went to the 11:00am children’s service at church.  Man there were a lot of kids there!

Checking out their nativity puppets.

James pretty much slept through the whole thing, including the very noisy birthday party for Jesus afterward!

My attempts to get pictures in front of the pretty Chrismon tree.

I think this face of Natalie’s is hilarious!

Sweet girl.

Showing me her glowstick.  Notice the hand on the hip – oh the ‘tude!

Fake smile for me, looking at her daddy out of the corner of her eye.

And the best one of all three – such cuties!!

All the glowsticks for James.  :)

Eatin’ her cookie at the birthday party.

Emma, Lisa, and Joanna.  I don’t either of my girls finished their big cookie. 

They were very interested in the Teddy Grahams that were available though.

On our way to the evening service, we stopped by David’s house to drop off some homemade bread for him.  He took a bunch of pictures, which I’m hoping to steal soon.  :)  This is one I took of my girls with his daughter, Laura.  They just love her!

Natalie wanted a sip of water before bed.  I handed her a little jam jar that Joanna usually uses since it’s much easier to clean than the sippies.  Anyway, I snapped this picture because she reminds me of Cindy Lou Who, who was no more than two.

I have gotten into the “tradition” each year of snapping a picture of the fireplace area.  I love to see how it changes with each passing Christmas.  I’ll do a post “through the years” next.

The tree has many more ornaments on the top than the bottom.  The girls LOVE to take the ornaments off, but don’t love as much to put them back on.  :)

This one was after I stuffed the stockings and Pop brought over the gifts from them.  See the big red box in the picture?  It’s for me.  :)  Oh, and Matt too.  And really anyone who steps foot into the house.  It was so tempting to open it up before morning.  But I didn’t.  I probably have time-stamped photos to prove it.  :)

Joanna really got in to Christmas this year.  It is SO MUCH FUN to have a little child full of wonder and awe about the whole thing!

I have to be honest, I really haven’t wanted to have much to do with Santa at our house.  Not that I’m opposed, but I really want to limit what detracts from the real meaning of the celebration.  I’ve thought and thought about it, especially this year since Joanna really “gets it.”  We pretty much had to decide what we’re going to do and do it!  As the season progressed, I found ways of merging Santa and sweet Baby Jesus.  Actually, the ways found me.  I listened to people say that Santa gives because he has Jesus in his heart.  Santa gives because baby Jesus was born.  We get gifts because Jesus was given gifts.  It all works.  I think we can do it all.  And anyway, it’s pretty hard culturally to not “do Santa.”  Every grown-up that sees the kids asks them about him!

Matt and I decided at our house that Santa will stuff the stockings.  That’s pretty much how the legend started anyway.  It’s funny because Joanna really got into the mystery of Santa and (without any encouragement from us) decided he had done some other things Christmas morning!  More on those to come.

Misc Christmas Stuff

A couple of weeks ago James and I got to go the the Sola Gratia party at Meredith’s house. 

We had a gift exchange and I came home with a super-cute “beverage” bucket with jingle bells on it.  I put Christmas books and toys in it – very cute!   James got held by lots of “mommies!”  It was wonderful!

Last week sometime Joanna and I set up Matt’s train under the tree while the little ones were sleeping.

Sadly, for whatever reason, Natalie is very scared of it!  She’s warming up though.

Joanna helped me mash potatoes a day or so before Christmas.  We were given a honey-baked ham (yummmmm!!!!), and we ate some with some of it with the taters.  Sooooooooo good!

One evening I headed to Wal-Mart with James while Matt took the girls on a wagon ride to look at lights.

There is a block a couple of blocks from our house that really does it up good!

Apparently there was a dancing Santa who sang Christmas songs, too!

James in one of his Christmas outfits.  He sure is cute.  :)

So much more to come.  We love all these wonderful Christmas activities!

Heather

Cousin Heather came in for a visit a few days before Christmas.  She was able to stop by before she had to go home.

She brought the kiddos books from the Kentucky clan!

 

Chicka Chicka Boom Boom, The Legend of the Indian Paintbrush, and a DK board book for James!

The girls LOVE Heather!

Natalie and Joanna always welcome new shoes to play in.  :)

James woke up just before she left so she got to hold him too!  He was taking a huge nap in his car seat in the laundry room.  :)

Holiday Play

Last week there was no school AND our friend Kim was in town, so we had a Tuesday playdate at Lisa’s.  I love Lisa’s.  :)

Natalie LOVES to swing.  LOVES IT.  She always always cries when it’s time to come out.  I’m pretty sure she’d cry even if I bribed her with cake or french fries or chocolate milk.

Her sweet friend Caleb pushed her!

Natalie and Callie – jammin’

Sweet Anna, the best big sister!

There were other friends there too, but keeping up (or trying to) with three children doesn’t leave much time for pictures.  :)

Natalie Stuff

I often find her flipping through books.  I also often find her on the coffee table.  She loves it up there.

She wants to see the picture.  Somehow, she wants to both see the picture and be in the picture… at the same time.

See what I mean about the coffee table?  We were watching The Sound of Music, and she laid right up there to get a good view.

Normally I try to keep the girls out of the baby stuff (bouncer, swing, car seat), but she was just so fussy this morning, and she got so happy when she climbed in this little swing.  So I let her stay there for awhile.

She sure is a cutie, but she’s working really hard at being two lately.  She often answers “no. yes!” to things.  She wants to do everything Joanna does, even when she really can’t.  She’s just about ready for her first haircut.  In fact, I may try to see if I can get her in next week.  Although I may want to wait for a time I can leave the J’s at home with someone and make this a special outing for us. 

Today Christiana came and picked up Joanna for a little play date this afternoon.  Oh Natalie cried and cried and screamed and hollered.  It was so sad!  I tried bribing her with a cookie to stop :) but it didn’t work.  She eventually settled after some snuggles and some home movies on the computer.  Then she went down for a nap (in the crib!).

Then Natalie got to go with Daddy on a quick errand when he got home.  Guess who cried and screamed and hollered then?  Ha!  She finally calmed down when it was time for her to help me make dinner.  She loves to help in the kitchen (and is getting better all the time), but it’s so hard when Natalie wants to help too, and she’s not quite ready to do the things Joanna can do.  And it’s hard to monitor two little girls on two jobs and actually get anything done.  :)  Joanna got to mash the potatoes tonight – she loved it!

Kids learn things so early these days

Joanna was playing with her play phone and decided James wanted to as well.

He’s texting.

Now on an important call.  :)

She’s hilarious.

My latest great invention

Both girls eat at the table in regular chairs; they usually sit up on their knees if they need to.  Consequently though, my chairs get pretty disgusting.  Natalie especially reaches around with her applesauce/peanut butter/spaghetti sauce fingers and touches the chairs.  Ew.

So as I was scrubbing them down yesterday I thought to myself that I needed to fashion some kind of cover that I could throw into the wash.  I was thinking, “I need something like a pillowcase…”  So you know what I did?

I went and got an extra pillowcase.

 

It fit.  Yay!! 

Here you can see evidence of Natalie’s applesauce fingers on the chair.

I think I’ll go to Wal-Mart and get a matching set since Natalie likes to chair hop.  Whoo hoo!