Merry Christmas to all!

We decided that celebrating Christmas on just one day wasn’t good enough for us.  It ended up being more like a week of Christmas celebrations.

It started Tuesday night with Lily receiving the gift that was too big to travel to Grandma & Grandpa’s house for Christmas day. 

We decided while we were at it, we would have her open up gifts from Scott’s family.  And Scott decided there was no need to wait until Christmas to unwrap the Wii (our family gift).

Wednesday, we took Mickayla, Brooklynn, and Lily to “The Princess & the Frog.”  The older girls were perfectly behaved . . . my little one became antsy the last 30 minutes and needed to walk around.  Later that night, we went to look at lights with Shane, Maddy, Dacian & Lavinia.  Lily & Dacian had a blast sitting by each other in the car ooohing and awwwing over the lights.

Thursday, Scott took me to the Nutcracker.  He wanted to surprise me with tickets, but decided to let me choose my seats when he was ordering the tickets instead.  I really, really wanted to go, so I love that my husband took me even though he doesn’t care for ballet.    I was in heaven!  (I can’t wait until Lily is old enough that I can justify taking her, because I know Scott won’t want to go again.)

Christmas Eve is always my favorite time.  That’s when all my favorite traditions take place.  We secretly decorated the outside of the missionaries apartment with homemade decorations . . .

and then returned home to read and act out the Nativity story.  I didn’t take any pictures of our fabulous acting, but we had a lot of fun.  Brook loved being Mary with Brent as Joseph and riding her faithful donkey (Reed).  Mickayla chose to be the angel, Erin was grumpy Hared, and Lily was my little sheep.  Everyone else played multiple roles of inn keepers, wise men, and shepherds.

Christmas morning came a little early for Lily.  Even though we let Lily sleep in until 8 (which about killed Brooklynn, Mickayla, and Reed), she wasn’t ready to get up quite yet.

She quickly warmed up to the idea when she saw her presents.  She loves all the dress up clothes she received this year (from her parents and both sets of grandparents).

 

She even liked dressing up in Zeke’s clothes . . .

 

We hope you all had a wonderful Christmas, and that you’ll have a safe and happy New Year!