Christmas Eve with Family

Marcus' Mom came into town on Friday night for Christmas weekend. We had a yummy dinner at a local cafe and then drove around and looked at some Christmas lights.

Saturday morning, my Dad and Jacque came over to celebrate Christmas with lunch! They brought pizza and I made salad and dessert. It was super casual and easy! 

Abby recruited Jacque into playing chalk with her!

She also played her favorite game- hide and seek with Granpa and Jacque!

And, had a lot of fun doing everything but smiling for a picture with them!

She was all smiles in her new 6' tall cardboard castle they bought her. She loves to open and shut the doors and windows inside the castle.

We tried hard to get a smiling photo with Mimi, too. Abby wasn't the problem, this time around :) Mimi was so nice to get Abby a Pluto doll to complete the Mickey Mouse set!

Carol and our family went to Christmas Eve service at a nearby church. We didn't attend our church this time, but picked one with an earlier time slot to accommodate our plans for the day. It was the neatest production of the story of Jesus' birth. They used modern songs, language, and storytelling to make it all so relatable. We were also proud of Abby who dropped off without much struggle. Very cool... there was break dancing to Hark the Herald Angels Sing. Unexpected!

 

After church, we came home and had dinner and then exchanged gifts. We do our gifts to each other (and this time with Mimi) on Christmas Eve. We then do stockings and Santa on Christmas morning. I was most excited to open Abby's choices from Dollar Tree.

She gave Marcus- a large blue crayon, razors, a blue Gatorade, Dora stickers, and a large brush typically used for cleaning your back. She thinks it is a really big toothbrush!

I received a Christmas container, Peace sign headband, fuzzy scrunchies, blue marbles, and little black plastic balls used to fill a vase. Oh, and a birthday card to a son and his wife. Hilarious!

We laid out ginger spice and chocolate chip cookies along with almond milk for Santa.

We also left out food for the reindeer! Abby was given a small baggie of oats to feed the reindeer with at church. She was very clear to us they would need food!

After a long and busy day, Abby went to sleep pretty quickly! We had fun laying out her gifts from Santa and filling the stockings before going to bed early ourselves!