Christmas Eve

We have had a wonderful Christmas, and I want to blog a little of it before my next adventure. I am already behind in blogging by about 5 ideas. And tomorrow all the boys leave with me and Jessica to go to BERLIN for 2 days. I am very excited to see the city, and am only slightly worried about traveling with the boys without Steve. I can be forceful enough with them, but when I do it myself it can really effect my attitude. I will let you know how it goes. :)

First....we bought a live tree around the 1st of December. We took a look at it on the 17th when Steve's parents were leaving and realized that it wasn't looking too good. Since we wanted to have fires over the holidays we figured we would be smart to get that dead thing out of our house and buy a second Christmas tree. So, the day Jessica got here we went and bought another one, and here are Steve and Jessica decorating it.

As for Christmas Eve:
Steve's family has a tradition of eating KFC on Christmas Eve. They usually go to a tree lighting ceremony where they are away from the house for about 2 hours right at dinner time, so bringing food in makes things a lot easier. And Fran and Lyle found themselves at KFC for two Christmas Eve's in a row when they were newly married. So, Steve would like to keep that tradition, and although I complain about it sometimes, it sure makes my Christmas Eve easier! I had time to finish wrapping presents, make sugar cookies, and clean the house to get ready for company instead of spending lots of time in the kitchen. It tasted pretty good too. The Hancock's (Nathaniel, Felicity and William, plus Felicity's Mom) are the company that we were so happy to have over for the evening.
After dinner we had a wonderful performance of the Christmas story that Jessica put together for us. We got to sing lots of Christmas songs from the hymn book and remember the birth of Christ.
{Nathaniel, Felicity, and William playing Mary, Joseph and baby Jesus}

{We had the privilege of having Jessica be here as our Angel holding the star}

{Here is Jacob with Williams hat acting as a sheep}

{Everyone all looking at the baby in the manger }


Then we went in to the kitchen and frosted the said sugar cookies so we could have a treat for Santa.
{William loved the sugar cookies, and being with his Grandma}


K, here is Jacob's way of frosting the cookies:First you frost
Then you dump the sprinkles on the plate
Then you rub your cookie in circles all around the plate to pick up the sprinkles.
And Wahlah a perfectly decorated sugar cookie.

After the Hancocks left, the boys got to open one gift and they all got matching Superman pajamas.
{OK, the ironic thing here is...I bought these PJs back in September. Then when we were home in Virginia for Thanksgiving, I was going through Daniel (my nephews) old clothes to see if the boys could use any. I found this Superman Halloween costume that Steve has been wearing every day for the past week. And they are almost identical to the PJ's I bought.}
We then set out cookies for Santa and carrots for the reindeer and sent the kids to bed.
{The nicely decorated ones were all made my Jessica. It has been so nice to have her here!}