Christmas Eve 2015

On Christmas Eve we went to church for a 5:00pm service which the Sunday School children did.  Both Bennett and Ashley did so nicely during that service.  They both had shepherd headgear on but I was too far away to get a decent picture and, I hate to take pictures during a church service.

After church we got home and Santa once again miraculously came while we were gone.  The kids and Mike leave the house and I quickly get the gifts out of the storage room and under the tree. 

I told them we couldn't open any presents until they took a nice Christmas picture.  I had a couple good ones within 2 minutes.  This never happens and it's usually a struggle to get good pictures from them so maybe presents is the key!  

Each kid had 8 real gifts and 2 small stocking gifts.  The quantity of 8 is higher than other years but dollar amounts weren't.  Neither of them had any really expensive items on their list this year so I was able to get them a few more extra gifts.  I think the most expensive gift was $20.  And, this is the first year that they were both thrilled by every single gift which was great too and lots of fun to watch.  There were a few gifts which during the fall they had wanted when they were shopping with me a few times but I said they couldn't get it...went back and got them during a different shopping trip.

He's loving this dart gun.  I'm not loving all the darts laying all over my house though. 

He wanted this backpack in August when we were school shopping.  The one he had from last year was in good enough shape though so I wasn't gonna buy him this.  But after a few weeks of school I realized that maybe he would actually need a new one so I bought this and put it away, hoping his current one would last him until Christmas.  

She wanted both the swimming pool and the Frozen music book while on a shopping trip with me.  Gee, how did Santa know she wanted both of those?!

New MN Wild cap.

He wanted a helicopter.  You can see it floating in the middle of this picture.  It was $10 at Menards so for $10, I figured it wouldn't last long.  Since I didn't know if he'd actually be able to handle a more expensive one, I bought the $10 one.  It worked really good for about 4 days.  We're now talking about using some of his Christmas money from Great-Grandparents to go buy a better one.  

I got Mike a couple ice fishing things he wanted and a MN hockey shirt. He got me back in November already the Wise Men set to the Willow Tree Angels Nativity set.  

After we had our gifts opened we had grilled hamburgers for supper.  Other years I have spent time making a nice Christmas Eve supper for us...chili, stuffed pasta shells...and it didn't work well since the kids don't like those foods.  So this year we went easy and grilled some burgers instead.  Worked for me.  

After the kids and eventually Mike too went to bed, I went with my siblings and Mom (and Shirley) to the CandleLight Service at 11:00pm at church.  That service is always nice for me because it means that all of my Christmas work is done (4 service bulletins for Church), I don't have kids on my lap whining or that I'm trying to watch say their parts - it's just relaxing and feels like Christmas.  

Merry Christmas from the Fords!