Twas the Night Before Christmas.....

Merry Christmas! What? Christmas was last week?? Oh...so it was. So...it...was. Yeah, I'm a little behind on my blog posting. In my defense, we have been incredibly busy. I mean, it is the holiday season and (insert any excuse you can think of here).......

Christmas is always a whirlwind of activities -- so many things to do, places to go, people to see. But somehow, we always manage to fit everything in. My parents came down to visit the Tuesday before Christmas and I was sooooo thankful. They stayed until the day after Christmas which allowed me to actually get out of the house on my own for a while. Heaven. Pure heaven. I love my children, but I can't even begin to tell you how much easier it is to run errands alone. Ahhhhhhh. Heath's parents babysat the Saturday before, so we were able to do a little Christmas shopping then too. It was a VERY good week. :)

Christmas eve day we headed over to Walterboro to have Christmas with Heath's family. Of course, there was music...lots and lots of music. :) And a little dancing too.

Sing, Annabelle! Sing!!

Believe it or not, the musicians did take a short break to open presents. Actually, one musician (I'm sure you can guess which one) began opening gifts on his own while the rest of us were eating lunch. He walked in, so excited to show us a gift he had opened. Unfortunately, the gift was not his to open. It was one of the presents we brought for Heath's parents. Oh, well. He only wanted to help. I don't think the grandparents were too upset about it. :)

I absolutely love Annabelle's outfit and was thrilled she was able to wear it for Christmas. I've had it since just after she was born. It's a 6-9 months outfit, so I wasn't sure if it would work or not. Lucky for us, she's petite. It fit her perfectly...except for the pants. They were too big!! I had to gather them up with a safety pin in the back!!!

When the "real" present opening commenced, Jacob was ready. He would have happily opened everyone's gifts if we had let him. He did "help out" with a few of his sister's presents.

After visiting a little while longer, we loaded up the car with the new treasures and headed back to our house for Christmas Eve.

I had these visions in my head about how Christmas Eve would be: Kids dressed in their cute, new Christmas pajamas; Christmas music softly playing in the background, Jacob and Annabelle both sitting quietly, listening while Heath read from the Bible about the real meaning of Christmas. My visions were hardly reality:

Jacob and Annabelle were both getting colds...AGAIN...and were pretty tired from the day's festivities. They were whiny and definitely not in a Christmas kind of mood. Despite the crying and whining, we pressed on and eventually Jacob and Annabelle became much happier. I'm not sure what brought on the mood change, but I was very pleased with this 180 degree turn around.

While Heath read the Christmas story from the Bible, I used the Little People Nativity set as a visual, acting out each scene as Heath read. It worked...fairly well. Of course, Jacob and Annabelle wanted to play too.

After a little playtime, we put out cookies and milk for Santa, then tucked the kids into bed; however, Jacob was waaaaaaaaaaaaaay too excited to sleep. He talked and sang, and talked and sang, and talked a little more for almost two hours before he finally gave up and fell asleep.

When both kids were finally asleep, Santa showed up...big time.

In fact, I think Santa may have overdone it...just a little. Note to Santa for next year: Stop at two gifts per child...really. Jacob had so many gifts to open, I think he actually got tired of it. Instead of, "Wow! Another present?!?!?", the look on his face was more like, "Ugh...not another one." We have definitely learned there is such a thing as toy overload. Anyway.....