Christmas Eve...

I had very high hopes of keeping up with blogging now that

we have a working computer and camera at the same time...

but now its just to find the time!

I will admit,

most of the time I am pooped out by the time the kids finally

fall asleep,

so I choose to just relax in bed, laying on the ice pack

and watching Hulu...

my choice of shows being

Hart of Dixie, Nashville, New Girl and Modern Family...

I am still mourning the ending of Parenthood!

~

Anyhow...

Tonight I turned off Hulu and will post about

Christmas Eve...

{now that Valentines day is over!}

 

This year was a crazy year...

4 weeks before Christmas,

we moved to a new house...as we unpacked boxes we decorated

for Christmas and it felt like chaos!

Then,

the day before Christmas eve,

Jon had knee surgery...

so he was slightly groggy and not feeling very good!

But, the kids never seem bother by the chaos...

to them Christmas is magical,

no matter what!

Christmas is BIG deal in this house...

the kids looked forward with great anticipation to the

Big Day!

One of our {many} traditions is the

Lump of Coal...

this is our 3rd year of passing the lump around...

Every year 1 person is given the lump of coal...

then that person gets to choose who to give it to the next year.

This year Elsie chose to give the Coal

to James!

The Coal is a coveted gift in this house,

so James was very excited!

He has already been trying to figure out who he should

give it to next year!

James expression is priceless!

They all really were very happy...

just getting excited to finish with the pictures so they could tear into the

stockings!

Poor Daddy!

This is how he spent his Christmas eve!

After we finished with the stocking stuffers,

the kids and I headed to church...

we made Daddy stay home and rest!

After Church we went to my parents house for the

traditional Christmas eve meal of

potato sausage!

Poor Jon was feeling so rough,

he didn't even want to join us...

he did agree to come long enough to eat then went

strait home to rest.

Sorry to say the kids were having too much fun to miss him too much!

My family always does a $5 movie exchange on

Christmas Eve...

Everyone brings a $5 movie and we play dice until everyone has one...

we split up into groups...

girls, kids and guys...

I was happy to trade movies with my dad...so I came home with

Napoleon Dynamite!

Since my kids were the only ones,

I surprised them with Frozen and a few others...

ironically only Frozen has been watched,

the others still are sealed up!

Sisters!

All but 2...

Well, Elsie snuck into the sister pictures...



Someone said,

"lets pretend to eat, it will be funny!"

so we did...

not sure if its really as funny as we thought it would be...

but we were all laughing so hard!

We are a weird group of people sometimes!

~

We all fell into bed,

very late,

with a smile on our face and a warmth in our hearts...

spending Holidays with family is a special thing...