Christmas Eve

The tradition in my family is that we always have Christmas with my parents on Christmas Eve. We get dressed up (the kid's in their Christmas outfits) and go to Macaroni Grill for dinner, then back to Mom and Dad's house for presents and dessert. 

First things first. Evan's new chair was obvious and difficult to wrap, so we went ahead and let her "open" it before stockings.  She LOVES Luke's chair, and I knew she would be so excited to have one in her room. 

Next came the stockings

Among other things, she got chapstick. Girlfriend loves her chapstick.

I promise Luke got a giant stocking too, with lots of things he loved, but I guess all his pictures got on Mom's camera and all of her pictures got on mine. That's the risk you run when you pass your camera duty off to some one else!

Now for this picture... About 3 months ago (10 weeks to be exact, per Instagram) Evan pulled out my crock pot of the cabinet and shattered the inside of it. I joked that she could ask for a new one for Christmas, since she really wouldn't care what was inside the wrapping paper, as long as she got to unwrap it. So one of the first presents she unwrapped was this tiny little crock pot.  We laughed and laughed at how small it was, the perfect "Evan" size. But really, I was disappointing because I kinda did want a new big one.  Turns out at the very end of Christmas a big box came out and I got my (Evan's) wish.

After so. many. pairs. of Converse for the kids, I finally got my first pair! It was just a coincidence that they kinda matched my dress. 

 See? I big boy was there after all. This was one of his bigger presents. It was a construction set complete with a big crane, and he couldn't WAIT to get it home to pull out all the pieces.

One of Evan's other big presents was this kitchen set. She LOVES it. Actually, both kids do. Mom also got her some play food and I got her some play pots and pans, and the two of them have had so much fun.

 Soon it was time to get home and get ready for Santa! They got in their new Christmas jammies...

wrote Santa a letter...

 and someone got pen happy once Bubba got down...

put out cookies and milk for Santa...

and got a little silly on the floor on our way to bed.

I got the girl in bed, and then the boy and I read our traditional "Twas the Night Before Christmas", and I tucked him. The manfriend was over, so by the time we got everyone settled in and down and had played Santa, we watched a movie. Next up...Christmas day!