Christmas Eve 2012

This year I can't believe how fast it went and Christmas came!  The month was soo busy with everything on top of being SO busy with Paparazzi that looking back it seems like it was just summer.  This year felt very odd too with 45 degree weather, slightly rainy, birds out chirping on Christmas Eve, boys playing basketball in the street and nice green grass.  STRANGE!!!!  I'm used to cold and snow.  That was different.
On Christmas Eve we mostly just relaxed at home and the night before we started wrapping and realized that the proportions of gifts were very off and wanted to find Hadi one of those couches.  Jaycee has one and Hadi loves it.  We did all the cooking & neighbor gifts and then headed to some stores (mostly because we were bored) and found nothing.  That was okay though.  That night we Skype with Craig's family for their annual party.  Jaycee got some fun things and after it was all done she was OBSESSED with the play dough.  Well done Don.  Hadi also got some very cute toys and she loved opening them.  She's so easy and chill that she played with them all.  They looked adorable in twinner jammies for the night.  (Jaycee loves being twinners with her)  Craig got a cool Lions hat (he wears with shame!) from Don and I got some cute clothes from Jordann.  THANK YOU!  We also got some gift cards from Craig's parents (we're still unsure what to spend them on) and his dad made an AWESOME wood snow globe.  Every year he makes something with his wood work.  I look forward to that every year.  Thank you Phyllis and Larry for everything and for caring so much for our family!!!  We were starving after the party so we ate dinner a little late at 7 and had little smokies, bbq chicken, fruit and veggies & dip.  It was sooo tastey.  We mostly just relaxed and cleaned up and played until about 10 when it was time to get ready for bed.  Jaycee got the cookies & oranges for Santa and also took the reindeer food out to the lawn (thank you Renee & family) and then it was time for our bedtime story.  With all the hype of Santa I wanted to start a new tradition that on Christmas Eve we end the night with Christ, afterall, HE is the one we should be celebrating.  We all circled around by the piano where my nativity set is.  Craig read the story from Matthew & Luke as we placed the pieces up on the piano and explained to Jaycee.  Then I sang "Away in a Manger" for the family.  This song is so touching to me this year as the words are so powerful!  We also as a family thought of a gift we can give Jesus like the wisemen and we decided to give him "kindness towards each other"  Jaycee decided to have a sleep over with Had in her room and it wasn't long until they were both out cold.  Then we stayed up until 3 wrapping gifts and getting everything perfectly ready.  It was such a fun day and I was so thankful Craig was able to have vacation to take it off to spend with us.

 Opening gifts on Skype with the family.  So fun to see them and make this a tradition

 Jaycee loves play dough.  She got this from Uncle Don