Christmas Eve

Wow! We had such an awesome wonderful Christmas! The festivities started last weekend with dinner and gift opening at Granna and Pops. Sadly, the camera never made an appearance, so we have no pictures. But it was a nice fun evening together with family.

Then things got ramped up on Wednesday, Christmas Eve. Our friends Marti and Rob came over with their two kids, Susy and Andy, and we had a birthday party for Jesus.

Here Daryl reads the Christmas story from Lane's children's Bible.

Then we threw confetti and yelled "HAPPY BIRTHDAY JESUS!!!" Brynna and I had made the confetti ourselves earlier in the day from red and green construction paper.

What birthday party would be complete without birthday cake?! We put 3 candles in to represent the trinity and because 2000+ candles wouldn't fit. We all sang Happy Birthday, and Brynna and Susy blew out the candles.

After cake the girls made some reindeer food. I read in a magazine that if you leave some food out for the reindeer on Christmas eve, they might leave a sleigh bell in the yard for you. The recipe is simple, just some dry oatmeal and magic dust. I got my magic dust at Michael's.

Here are the girls sprinkling the food out in the grass. We asked our neighbors across the street if we could use their yard, since we don't really have one.

Here are the boys watching. The daddies thought they were so funny discussing who was having more fun at the party, the girls or the mommies.

After the birthday party, we headed down to church for the Christmas Eve service. Our church has just built a new sanctuary, and this was to be the very first service in the new building. The building isn't quite finished yet, and regular services won't be held there for a few more weeks, so this was an exciting sneak peak. We met up with a third family and all made the mistake of sitting on the front row. Front row with 3 three year old little girls, maybe wasn't the smartest move. We tried to keep them as contained as possible, and I hope we didn't make as much of a spectacle as I think we did. This picture is the the three of them laying on the floor during the singing portion of the service. Perhaps the band thought they were laying out in praise.