Christmas Eve Eve

Our Christmas celebrations began on Christmas Eve Eve. Our church has our Christmas service on that night instead of the 24th and we love that! We were leaving for Ft. Worth the next morning, so we told Kendall that Santa would be coming that night and we opened presents as a family on the 24th before we left. So, that meant that we had to bake Santa cookies! Randy came home for lunch and we all baked cookies together. We decided to make M&M cookies because "emmies" are Kendall's favorite these days.

"Kendall bakes!"

After church that night we went over to the Johnson's to have "Lake Jackson Family Christmas." The Sanders and Amy came over too and we had dinner, dessert, played marbles, and opened presents. It was so much fun. We love that tradition. And, we were excited because Alden and Scott were here for it this year, too!

With Alden and Scott, being here, that meant that Nicholas was here and Ethan and Kendall could play in his cage! They love that and wasted no time going straight for it!

Auggie and Kendall were talking about how both of them had tights on. Kendall loves her tights and thought it was pretty funny that Auggie had some too!

Opening presents!

It was nice outside, and Kevin and Jan had just gotten a fire pit, so we spent a lot of time out on the back porch. Here is a fun picture of Kendall and Randy looking through the window.

Towards the end of the night, Ella got sleepy and fell asleep on Kevin on the hammock. Kendall got a little jealous and had to get in on that!

And before we left, we tried to get a family picture. It went the same way it usually goes. :)

When we got home, we put out the milk and cookies, and went to bed to wait on Santa! Kendall was talking a lot about Santa on the roof, coming down the "chimy" and bringing her candy in her stocking. We sang "Up On The Housetop" a whole lot this year. She loved the part at the end where we say "click, click, click!" So much fun to do all this with our big girl!