Christmas Eve

(Totally forgot this pic in the lineup. Ooops. But I couldn't miss showing you the decorations Isaac helped me hang!)

We have spent the past 4 days in Houston, so I am just now home and ready to blog!

Did you miss us? :)

I give myself until New Year's Day to finish my Christmas posts...there are SO many photos! My photo editing website is down where I blur J's face...so you are about to view a TON of my beautiful daughter who loved posing for pics this year! And a few of my oldest son who just does not sit still long enough for a decent shot. LOL!

We begin with Christmas Eve (which for us was Thursday).

Vivi helped me bake Jesus' birthday cake.

Check out those curls!


Then we set up for the party which would take place after our lasagna dinner.

Vivi chose to dress like an angel for the occasion.

I wrapped Jesus' gift, an ornament for the tree.

Isaac insisted on doing an invitation. So cute but J's name is on it so I had to delete the photo. Boo. :(

Vivi asked of Jesus could sit by her. I explained that Jesus doesn't actually come to the party.
Isaac came up with a solution that you will see below!

The table dressed and ready!

And Isaac found us a "Jesus"!

We sang the Happy Birthday song and enjoyed red velvet cake.
I asked the kids "why do we have Christmas?" and Isaac said "because Jesus came to a sin filled world as a baby in a manger to be our Savior." Love it!

Then we did our play using our fisher price manger scene. Billy read a children's book of the Christmas story and the kids scurried to set up the manger as each line was read. I got it on video. It is some funny stuff!

Then the kids took their pj pics in front of the tree and ran to their rooms to open their ornaments. After bedtime I set up the gifts.

CPS delivered HUGE bags of gifts to the kids the day before, so their piles were especially big this year, including this bike for J! We are so blessed by these gifts.

Oscar was very curious about what was in these stockings and kept us up late into the night fretting until I hid them in the kitchen.

The kids woke up before dawn and opened their gifts one at a time.

Here are some of J's since he can't be in these photos!

Isaac with some of his gifts.

Christmas morning breakfast!

We ate our breakfast of peppermint chocolate pancakes, bathed, packed, loaded the van and headed to Houston! Vivi of course had to wear her new Rapunzel dress right away.

If you are like me, you love the little window into other families' Christmases that blogs afford! I enjoy reading and seeing photos of your celebrations, and I will post more of mine in the following days!