Christmas Eve and Day

We’re doing Christmas Eve and Day together because for me it all ran into each other.  I had to work the night before Christmas Eve as well as Christmas Eve so I spent most of the day sleeping…or trying to.  I only slept about 3 hours and laid there another 2.  It wasn’t very cool. 

At 5 pm we all went to Grandma’s house for Christmas Eve Dinner and the Nativity.  While we were waiting for dinner to start I got to talk to my mom and dad who were just leaving visiting my Aunt Nadine in the hospital and headed over to visit my brother.  Then we had dinner and the kids put on the Nativity.  I got to see them all dressed up and then I had to leave for work.  Lincoln and Kallie were Joseph and Mary, Tyler, Jesse and Tracen were wisemen, Mack was a shepherd and Kole an angel.  Tyler put together all of the costumes while I slept.  These are our attempts at getting them together for a picture…

Come on Mary, we’ll try the stable…

Look we have a baby!

Tracen was sure that the wise men held baby Jesus too.

Mary’s leaving the scene

This is as close as it gets…

Shepherd boy

Link kicked back with Josh

Then I have no idea what happens at the Neilson houses for the next 12 hours.  But when I got home Santa had come.  I’m not sure when he slipped in though because I got updates from Josh at 9,10, 11, 3 and 4 am.  All but one of those times Jesse was having a really hard time sleeping.  One of the nurses came in an hour early so we could get our Christmas done and make it to church.  When I got home everyone was asleep still and I lost the fight with myself…I climbed into bed for an hour. 

We got up at 8, opened all the presents and made it to church (amazing!) by 9 am.  And only the last 15 minutes were rushing around.   We all had a good Christmas.  The boys got really spoiled.  Link found some candy in his stocking and didn’t open one thing after that.  So Tracen and I opened his presents for him.  After a good Sacrament meeting we came home and got ready (I laid down for 40 minutes) Then we headed off to Grandpa and Grandma Neilson’s for more spoiling.

We opened presents and ate lots of food.  Everyone watched a movie and I took Lincoln and we went for a drive home and back to get some stuff we forgot  and so Lincoln could take a nap.  Then I was the party pooper and made everyone come home early so I could go to bed.  I was so tired!

It was a fun and good Christmas.  Next time I work all night on Christmas Eve, though, I think we’ll write a letter to Santa and ask him to come a day or two early!

New Jammies

 

Jesse in his new blue feather boa :)  Ty put it on top of his gift to irritate him.

All the boys got new fleece blankets

Tracen and Link got a new kitchen to play with.

 

Josh got some rings for his gym…Link thinks they’re awesome.

Like a week before Christmas we let Santa know we found a really good deal on a cello.  Thankfully he got it for Ty.  Ty loved it and thanked us and gave hugs out for a week. 

Link’s going to love the car DVD player Grandpa and Grandma Whitney gave them

Then onto Grandpa and Grandma Neilsons where the insanity continued.  We had Crystal and Kurt this year.  Jesse painted a painting for Leah Paisley’s room and made Crystal cry…it was so cute :)

 

The baby made out this year….she also got a backpack to ride in :)

Out of everything I think all the kids liked the snakes on top of Lincoln’s present the best…they had snake fights all day long Tracen and Mack played together really good too.