Christmas Eve

I love Christmas Eve! I love the excitement of Christmas being the next day! I love the candle light service at church and I love spending the day with my family! Christmas Eve is one of my favorite days of the year!

Family picture at church.

The kids did great during the candle light service. They got to go sit up front and listen to the pastor's wife read a Christmas story. They loved listening to the music, and were pretty quiet during the message, but their most favorite part was definitely lighting their candles! They were mesmerized!

After church we went over to my parents house for their annual Christmas Eve party.

The kids love wearing Papa's dancing hat!

Avery, Kennedy, Britty, and Tay

Playing left, right, center. I actually won one of the games this year!

All the kids working on a puzzle

KiKi gave all the kids Christmas pj's again this year, so sweet!!

They looked so cute!

Carson is a tad outnumbered, he'll be excited when baby brother is here to help offset all these girls.

Sweet cousins!

Miss Berkley Grace

After the party we headed home to get ready for bed so Santa could come. The kids put out cookies and water (Carson said Santa wanted water, not milk) then headed up to bed!

Merry Christmas Eve!

Advent

We had a very fun and eventful December this year. I made Carson and Avery an Advent calendar with lots of fun Christmas activities to help us prepare for Christmas. It was so fun watching them get excited this year about Christmas and helping them to understand the true meaning of Christmas.

Some of our advent activities included:

Our annual trip to Walls Family Farm to cut down our Christmas tree.

Carson brought his own saw this year.

Making Christmas cookies

Visiting the trains at Northpark

Going over to the Long's to decorate Christmas cookies

Some of our other activities (that I didn't get pictures of) included, going caroling at a few different houses (the kids sang Jingle Bells and We Wish You a Merry Christmas) making Christmas ornaments and then delivering them to our sweet meals on wheels clients, picking out toys for the "Christmas angels" at church, looking at Christmas lights, and Carson's favorite making a fire in our fire place (he is obsessed!!)

The kids also really got into "The Elf of the Shelf" this year. They got this Elf for their birthday from Aunt JJ, Uncle Travis, and Barrett and they loved it!! They named him Ellie and had so much fun waking up each morning and searching for his new hiding place. (I think Daddy had just about as much fun hiding Ellie each night). Here is Ellie on his last night before flying back to the North Pole.

And lastly, it just wouldn't be Christmas without a trip to see Santa. They did great this year!! They both ran right up (Carson even gave Santa a kiss) and sat right in his lap. They told Santa what they wanted for Christmas. Avery asked for a Doll house and Carson asked for a "kentar" (guitar). Not a single tear was shed this year, which kinda made me sad...my babies are growing up!

What a difference a year makes!

ICE

Avery and I had a really fun girl's day a few weekends ago while Shane and Carson were at the deer lease. We headed over to the Gaylord Texan with MiMi, KiKi, Bran, Britty, Berkley, Chelsea, and Ava to visit ICE. This year's theme was Merry Madagascar. It was so fun!

Avery loves her some baby Berkley!!

Getting bundled up to head into the freezer.

Britty, Bran, and Berkley

The Ice sculptures were amazing!

Brandy with sweet Berkley

It took a lot of convincing to get Avery to try out the slide,

but once she did, we couldn't get her off of it!

Britty and Avery

Avery, impersonating the hippo

I'm not sure which she loved more, the Ice sculptures or all of the baby Berkley time she got that day. 

She is obsessed!!

One more of this sweet little face!

We had such a fun day!