Christmas Eve

Every Christmas Eve we always go down to my parent's house. My sister Kendra and her family were there this year. They come every other Christmas so this is the "good year." We love having the cousins here to play and I love seeing Kendra who was my best friend growing up. It's hard having her live so far away, but we are so glad she and her husband make the effort and sacrifice to bring their 5 kids over for the holidays.

This year at mom and dad's was super crazy due to the major reconstruction they are doing to the house. I am talking walls torn out, bathrooms gutted and rebuilt and the whole backend of the house re-done. But dad has finally seen mom's vision for the house and is now a willing participant instead of dragging his feet over it. Thank goodness. The house is going to be beautiful when it is finally done! But this year it was still a construction zone.

Here are all of the grandkids (all 14) at the kids' Christmas table. From L to R, Zane, Jaxon, Cason, Canon Brody, Savannah, Kelsi, Kamrin, Kayley, Jillian, Tyler, Miley, and Colton. Only one missing is new baby Kristopher.

The kids playing with their presents. We did our schedule a little differently this year and instead of opening presents at night we opened after lunch so the kids could have fun playing with their cousins and their new toys. I am so glad we did as they all had a blast. Girls playing barbies, horses and dress up and the boys playing swords and Beyblades. You can see the girls in the back with Kamrin and Savannah's Barbie heads on which you fix their hair and make-up. The boys are playing Beyblades on the floor. Good times, they all got along so well.

Here is Colton opening the new doggie Gramma and Grampa got him. He was so thrilled he went around to show EVERYONE his dog.

Then Santa came that evening. All of the kids were completely beside themselves with joy. I love seeing kids get excited about Santa, it's so much fun. The little girls were jumping up and down and screaming, the little boys were hanging on his legs as he tried to walk through the house. Colton was especially infatuated with Santa and climbed right up on his lap and camped out there.

Excuse the no clothes on Colton, he is learning to undress himself and this is pretty standard around our house now. Although Santa should consider himself lucky because he likes to take off his diaper too and that's super risky because he is NOT potty trained yet. That's coming in January and boy, am I not excited over it.

We had a fantastic Christmas Eve, my mom got a little (okay, a lot!) crazy and made not only Prime Rib, but a full turkey and my sister brought a ham. There were two different kinds of potatoes, 3 different salads, rolls, gravy but not a veggie in sight! Hmm, oh well it is the holidays and who wants to be bothered trying to get in their veggies? Lots of desserts, Aunt Whitney's banana cream and chocolate cream pies, blackberry pie, apple pie, pecan pie, chocolate caramel brownies (brought by yours truly) and a huge platter of cookies from mom and Whitney's cookie exchange. Thought I'd throw in the menu each year so I can remember year-to-year what we ate.

I love the holidays. So much fun, so much family. You just can't go wrong.