Christmas Eve

We had a great Christmas. Man, is it true what they say about how much fun it is to see Christmas through the lens of your children. So much magic and excitement!
 

on our way to church...excited about our extra passenger

live nativity

This was the first year we brought the kids into the service with us instead of taking them to PeeWees. They did really good!

After church, we headed to my mom's house for lasagna dinner and to exchange gifts. 

cousin fun!

Mom & Tim

 This man...he has such a servant's heart. He is always so considerate of others and is the most humble man I know. For as long as I can remember, he has always quietly disappeared into the kitchen after meals to take care of the dishes. And he happily hums and whistles while he does them. What a great example to learn from.

Harrison with his GG and Papa

Harrison with his Beda and cousin Hunter

Say...candy cane!

macho boy talk going on in there

"Money for college? You mean, it's not free to go to school?"

Something I adore about Harper at this age: she is always so excited to show things off to her dad. Whenever I'm done fixing her hair, anytime she gets a new outfit or shoes, whenever I paint her nails, etc., the first thing she says is, "I can't wait to show Daddy. He's gonna love it!"  Every time she opened up a gift, she excitedly ran over to show him. :)

Daddy, look!

Those santas were taunting Lexi all night

 I am declaring this year as The Year of Star Wars. This kid is obsessed. And this kid was so happy ripping into his presents...90% of his birthday and Christmas gifts have been Star Wars themed.

Princesses!

Say Cheese!

 Harper thought she was done with her gifts, but Beda & Pappy had one more surprise. The wheeled it in and she literally did a happy dance. There is a funny story behind this bike. They had originally bought her a different one for Christmas, but that same night Harper happened to be over at their house and a commercial for this particular bike came on and she lit up with excitement. She was captivated by the princesses, baby seat, streamers, pink glitter, hearts...pretty much all of her favorite things. She told them something about how this was the bike that was made for her and how much she really really reeeeeeallly loved it. So back to the store with the original bike they went, and exchanged it for the frilly one with Harper's name all over it. :)

Steve was lucky enough to end up with Rick's white elephant gift. lol.

We came back home and baked cookies for Santa. The kids also sprinkled some reindeer food in the front yard.

My poor husband...about halfway through the evening he started feeling really sick. By the time we got home he had a fever and looked like death. So he went to bed early and I enlisted my cousin to be my little elf helper. Santa had a lot of work and assembling to do. I hate that Rick had to miss out on some of the fun. We got out our old baby monitor and put it in the kids' room so we could eavesdrop on them. Then Hunter went in the backyard and made some reindeer/Santa sounds. Listening to their conversation about it was absolutely priceless. So much fun!

After Santa's elf work was complete and the cookies were devoured, I settled into Harrison's bed for the night. Because a) I didn't want to catch the flu from Rick, and b) both of our kids sleepwalk every single night without fail and I didn't want them discovering all of the goodies before we were up and could watch.  It was a toss up on whose bed to choose because frankly, they are both terrible sleepers and thrash around all night long.

Love their Christmas trees in their room

But ultimately, it didn't matter. Harper woke up crying and started wandering out of her bed, so I quickly switched and laid down with her. And within 30 minutes, Harrison ended up over there, too. In case you didn't know, 3 people in a twin size bed makes for terrible, awful sleep. But I was more than happy to exchange sleep for sweet, precious snuggles with 2 amazing little people for whom my heart beats.