Celebrating Christmas

We had a great Christmas celebration this year. The kids are at such great ages and it is so much fun to see the excitement on their faces.

On Christmas Eve, we had our annual breakfast at Cracker Barrell. Then we went to the Christmas Eve service at church later that day. (And please note our small Christmas tree this year. With me not feeling well, the Christmas decorations were very limited. So we got a very small tree and it had about 12 ornaments on it!)

On Christmas Eve night, we thought it would be fun for all the kids to sleep together. Catherine and Will have done this for the past 2 years. We thought we'd put Anna in there too. However, an hour after putting them to bed, we could still hear Anna upstairs shouting "Hey, Hey, Night Night, Hey" so we finally had to put her in her crib. (I'm hoping this isn't a precursor to how things will be when she and Catherine share a room in a few months.)
On Christmas morning, Santa had left a few goodies for everyone.
We make the kids all wait upstairs and then come down together. I think Jay likes to torture them. Especially Catherine and Will had a long wait. They were up by 6am, and we had to go wake up Anna a little after 7am.
This is how Anna spent Christmas morning--in her new red shoes without any clothes on, pushing her baby grocery cart.
Jay got Will a Bengals football uniform and he looks so handsome and strong.
On Christmas afternoon, we headed to Union to celebrate with my family. Somehow in the chaos of 20+ people being in one room I didn't take any pictures. But we had lots of fun, and Santa left Catherine her Barbies in Union--a Christmas miracle.

On Tuesday, we went to Huntington. We loved spending time with little Marshall especially. He is hilarious and has some awesome dancing skills.
Will was very excited about his new bowtie. He also got his shaving kit he had asked Santa for.
Unfortunately, those are about the only pictures I got in Huntington because my little camera died. We really did enjoy our time there. It was sad to leave because that is the last time we'll probably be there. It was difficult for Jay to leave on Saturday morning knowing that he won't go "home" again. But we are looking forward with great anticipation to having Steve and Marcy here in a few months.

And by the way--we are the worst Santa parents ever. Here's a quick synopsis of our Santa mishaps this year.

• Santa did not bring Catherine or Will the one thing they each asked for on Christmas morning. Thankfully, grandparents came to the rescue this year. (I guess I shouldn't finished Christmas shopping by Halloween.)
• Santa did a terrible job putting together Catherine's new bike. The seat fell down, the handlebars wouldn't turn correctly, and the pedals wouldn't go. So we had to take it with us to Union for Uncle Bill to work on.
• While Uncle Bill is working on the bike, Jay looks at me and says "So where'd you get this bike anyway?" and I reply "Toys R Us". Catherine, who is standing there, says "But Santa brought me this bike."
• The next day, Will is crying because the belt that Santa brought him is a little too big. Jay says to him, "Do you know why Mommy got you this belt? I mean, why Santa got you this belt?"
• Catherine went downstairs to the basement to get something and discovered the stash of boxes we need to throw away. She came upstairs and said, "I saw the box that Anna's grocery cart came in. But I thought Santa brought her that." I replied, "Can you believe Santa left his trash here for us to throw away?" They now think it's really funny that we have Santa's trash in the basement.

So we need to either step up our Santa-game or this isn't going to last long at our house!

Hope you had a Merry Christmas and a Happy New year!