Christmas Eve 2011

We had a busy day of making sugar cookies for Santa and our yummy dinner feast. We decided to have lamb for dinner this year (as per Matthias "so we can remember the shepherds"), roast potatoes, beans, rolls, and homemade chocolate pudding...like made from milk and cocoa and not a Jell-O box. Mmm. Love that stuff. The lamb turned out well (Taylor was the chef). None of us have had lamb before, it smelled like venison while cooking, but had a completely different taste when eaten. It was fun. Maybe we'll do it again next year, maybe we won't. We're free and fun like that.

James organized a sing along with the kids earlier in the day while we were cooking (we spent a lot of time in the kitchen...good thing Taylor and I both really enjoy cooking). We have a Christmas Children's Song book with hymns and Santa songs along with pictures so the kids hauled the book around and sang a ton of them.

We also watched the Veggie Tales St Nick Christmas special which we did last year as well. I really like those Veggies and the St Nick one is fun.

After dinner we did the Nativity. Hannah was Mary, Matthias was Joseph/Shepherds/Wiseman, Taylor Narrator, Me Shepherd/Wiseman, James was the Angel. And he memorized his lines that he says to the Shepherds and it was really great. He had worked on them the couple weeks proceeding and nailed every word!

Then we sang some carols which was super awesome this year because all my kids know the words to several Christmas hymns (probably at least 6) and even multiple versus of some. Hannah is great with memorizing songs, really good, and loves singing them! And the boys are getting to be old enough they have learned quite a few. It was a dream come true.

Pjs were opened next and James had asked for slippers a few months ago so those came with. I sewed all the pajamas this year and that was fun. Hannah's match her baby she got for Christmas. And she was thrilled (the next morning obviously when she actually got the doll...)

Taylor and I then stayed up way too late wrapping presents and talking to family via video chat (probably at least 2 hours of it) which was wonderful and makes me so happy for that amazing technology.