'Twas the Night Before Christmas...

The day before Christmas Eve I found myself deciding to make our cookies & frosting so that on the 24th I wouldn't be overwhelmed w making cookies, frosting AND decorating them all, on top of everything else. It was great this year to have the kids really be able to be more hands on w the making & decorating. And even though it made for a long evening, on top of the long day I had had, I was glad we were able to do it!





On the 24th we were able to do our cookie decorating about 830am! Don't ask me how that happened, but we were all up so it seemed like the best time to do it! I was planning to go to my exercise class but Ryan couldn't sleep in so he was there to help. I was really glad Ryan was home bc it ended up being much messier than I figured! Hmm... wonder why...
















































I spent most of Thursday prepping our meal for the night. We had plans to go over to some friend's house for Christmas Day so I wanted to make our meal for the Eve. We did make it to 5 o'clock mass early enough to hear the carols & get a good seat, even if it was at the expensive of our sanity, as the kids were crawling the walls by the time we left! We figure in a few years, they'll be able to make it to midnight mass... about the time we'll be too worn out!

Here's the kids in front of our apt just bf mass.

Later that night...
After dinner, for which I forgot the cranberry apple chutney & bread sitting in the fridge (thanks pregnancy brain), the kids got dressed for bed, turned on all the Christmas lights & we started our evening traditions...

Getting Santa's cookies ready & writing Santa's note...



Then, putting out the reindeer food on the front lawn..

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We also put the baby Jesus in the manger, a tradition that Ryan's family has, but apparently, he can't go in till midnight & since the kids are asleep, we have to do that for them.

This was the first year Oliver really seemed to understand all that was going on. He was so excited & rushed us out of his room, convinced Santa wouldn't come if we were all awake. Mimi even lay in the bottom bunk w her eyes squeezed shut pretending to be asleep! All that was missing was the SNOW that most of you got!