Christmas Eve/Day

Christmas Day 2012!!! Such a bittersweet day for us this year. I was so thankful that my entire family was able to be here so we could celebrate together. Christmas Eve was a little hard because that is the day that my family always celebrated. We go to church at my parents church and then go back to my parents house for dinner and presents. We definitely missed my dad but felt his presence. We laughed and cried as we reminised about years past and it warms my heart to know how happy he was watching down on us all together and celebrating together. So bittersweet. We did church at St Robert's with my family and then headed back for chili and presesnts. That night when we got home we did our final advent calendar day and put up the final piece of our Nativity book. Then the kids opened their one present---of course Christmas jammies!!-- and then we put out cookies and milk and carrots for Santa and the reindeer and Ellie wrote a note for Santa. We also sprinkled reindeer food on the front lawn so they would know where to go! Then the kids fell into deep sleeps because they were do overly-tired! Christmas morning they woke up around 8 and were jumping with excitement and anticipation. We had a nice morning opening gifts and having pancakes for breakfast. It is so relaxing not having to go anywhere or be away from our house on Christmas morning. I am always so blessed that we don't have to travel to be with our family over the holidays! We went to Dave's brother in the afternoon to celebrate with Dave's family and then back to my mom's for Christmas dinner. It sounds like a lot but it's really not. My kids always look forward to each place and are happy to be able to spend time with our family. With my family we played a ton of games this year. Ellie got a couple new games and then we got a family game called Awkward family photos which was just hilarious!! Definitely made us laugh which we needed a lot of this year. We also went ice skating downtown at the ConAgra rink and went bowling with my nieces. All in all we had a great holiday and were blessed to spend it together!!