Christmas Eve

So hard to believe it's already Christmas Eve!   We had a wonderful day- we enjoyed our last night with our advent wreath and Jesse tree- (pic from several nights ago)




Finished up our "Christmas Story" puzzle- it's a "major award"-



BB and Poppy arrived this afternoon and got to see us finishing up our St. Nicholas cookies!  They were a hit!  I used this recipe, but burned the white chocolate badly in the microwave and ended up using white frosting for the beard and hat trim.

Tucker was happy to help!







BB was saying, "He's almost as tall as me now!  He's only 8!"






Then we sat on the porch and waited for Santa, and before long, he came round the bend sirens blaring.  Marky waited in the tree-



Frick and Frack-









Getting higher and higher-



Yay!!!  He's here!







And because we live on a cul de sac, we get to see him twice!



Then we came in and had our traditional Christmas Eve steak dinner-



Got to use our new nutcracker napkins-







Then we went into the family room and sang a lot of Christmas carols.



And each child got to open ONE present.  Marc and Julia got dream lights-





I hadn't wrapped Tucker's presents yet, so I just grabbed some Mr. Bubbles and gave it to him.  HE  WAS BESIDE HIMSELF!!!  He ran around screaming "Mr. Bubbles!  YAY!  Mr. Bubbles!  They will have lots of little white bubbles and I will get in them!!!!  Yay!  Thank you!!!  Hooooraaaaay!"  Sweetest.baby.boy.  (P.S. at bedtime we realized our idea to have Marc and Tucker "share" the dreamlight in their room was ridiculous and Marc ran to Walgreens and Target to find Tucker a penguin dreamlight for himself!)



Charliebear got a "gears" caterpillar that he LOVED and played with all night!



Then it was time to get Tucker's bubbles and get all four sweeties cleaned up for bedtime-



Charliebear- all cozy wozy after his nice bath- I kept calling him my "little gumdrop"-





The back of his jammies say "Santa's lil helper"







After snuggling a bit they all read a story with Daddy and then headed on to bed.












And I post this against my will because my voice is on it- (I need to remember how close I am to the mic)- but here are the children singing the 12 days of Christmas-

MERRY CHRISTMAS!