Christmas Eve

Well we had a wonderful 1st Christmas Eve with Kenley. I remember having contractions last year on Christmas Eve and not knowing that's what they were. Guess I should have known she was coming soon ;o)

My mom and dad were here with us today and although K didn't take an afternoon nap, we all had a lot of fun.  The weather was beautiful and there was a pretty white fluffy snow falling for most of the day. I decided we should sneak outside and take some pictures. I'm so glad we did, we got some good pictures to remember this day.

The tree and bushes in our backyard were just so pretty. I will miss having the mature trees when we move into our new house next year. Can I just take these with me?

We had a nice dinner with my mom and dad and when it was time to put Kenley to bed, we got all ready for Christmas. We decided we wanted one of our new family Christmas Eve traditions to be reading "Twas the night before Christmas" by the tree at bedtime. Here are Clay and Kenley getting started.

And here is proof I was in on the action even while taking pictures...

Kenley and I also took another picture by the tree.

And after Kenley was all snuggled in bed, (probably with visions of sugar plums dancing in her head...wait I don't think she knows what a sugarplum is... oh well) my favorite Christmas elf got to work putting together his first Christmas Eve projects.

He first did the wagon that Kenley is getting from Grandma and Grandpa B.

and then he got to work on the BIG gift we got her.

There were MANY more pieces to this than I expected but I am so happy with it all put together. I think I'll give my elf a raise ;o) Then as we were finishing up, we packed up the gifts in the wagon and set the tree for "Santa's visit" (Disclaimer: Those gifts are NOT all from just Clay and I. They are from 5 different sets of people including us, both sets of grandparents, my grandma/grandpa, and Aunt Rachel)

Now Clay and I are off to cozy in bed with some warm Chai and some Snickerdoodle cookies (that we made today) and watch Charlie Brown Christmas and The Grinch (original) before we drift to sleep and dream of sugarplums (do I even know what one of those looks like?)

So as I go off to bed for this cold snowy night, Merry Christmas to all and to all a good night!!!