Christmas 2016

Our first Christmas in our new home! It was such a wonderful time!

We spent Christmas Eve doing last minute wrapping, last minute baking and last minute prep for Christmas and by the time the evening came, we had three very hyper, very tired, very excited kids on our hands. πŸ˜‰ We made our dinner of Christmas Tree French Toast (might end up being a new tradition – everyone loved it) and then they got to open their annual one present on Christmas Eve.

New Christmas jammies!! Oh how I love these little faces!!

Then it was time for our last Advent of the year. The kids (and me!) are always so sad to see it come to an end.

Dad reading the last Advent reading – the Christmas story – while the boys warmed up by the fire. Love this so much.

The boys got their cookies and milk all ready for Santa and we had to be sure to include carrots for the reindeer. And then it was off to bed!

Christmas Eve night is just always one of my most favorite nights – I love the quietness and anticipation of the next day! We moved the cookies because we were worried Kody might steal them from Santa. πŸ˜‰

The kids were up early and got SO excited. The rest of the morning was a blur of present opening, cinnamon rolls, lots and lots of coffee and hot chocolate and jammied-kid snuggles.

Since Aunt Cayce was in town, we had them over for Christmas lunch and it was just so fun to host it in our own home! We loved seeing them for a couple of hours. They left soon after and it was just us again and we spent the rest of the day playing the new games the kids got for Christmas (Guess Who and Connect 4!), listening to the boys put on concerts for us on their new guitars and watching Christmas movies. And drinking more hot chocolate and coffee and I’m pretty sure we ate more cookies than Santa did. πŸ˜‰

I know I think this every year, but this year was truly one of the best Christmases ever. Last year was such a blur since we didn’t get home from the hospital after delivering Eisley until Christmas Eve night and I felt like I missed out on so much of her first Christmas since I could barely move after the c-section. πŸ˜‰ This year was perfect – we all went to bed saying that it had just been the best day ever. We laughed so much. Most of the gifts we gave were things we could do as a family, like the games and a dollhouse for Eisley that we all played with, and it just made the day so fun. The kids acted out the Christmas story with the Little Nativity, which was hilarious, and it was just the best, most relaxing day.

So thankful for such a wonderful day! God is so good to us.