Christmas Evening

A tradition in hubby's family is to delay stocking stuffer time until evening!  So in most cases opening the stockings is like another Christmas around  here. I did check little man's stocking before giving it to him. Grandparents have a tendency to put too much in it so I have to take stuff out and bring it out a little bit at a time.  Not to mention WE do not need a SUGAR overload!







[caption id="attachment_1046" align="aligncenter" width="300" caption="little man's is to the far left and mine is to the far right"][/caption]



 

 

[caption id="attachment_1047" align="aligncenter" width="199" caption="chillin'"][/caption]

After the fun of opening stockings it was time to decorate Jesus' Birthday Cake!  Of course little man choose the STAR shape pan for the mini cakes. He had so much decorating! It was a good feeling sitting around the table watching everyone decorate their own cake. Then we sang Happy Birthday to Jesus. So sweet listening to a child's voice!







[caption id="attachment_1048" align="aligncenter" width="199" caption="icing the mini star cake"][/caption]



 

 







[caption id="attachment_1049" align="aligncenter" width="300" caption="everyone got to decorate their own star cake"][/caption]



 

 







[caption id="attachment_1050" align="aligncenter" width="300" caption="yummy!"][/caption]



 

 

Christmas Morning

I love Christmas Morning!!! So much fun to watch little ones discover presents under the tree! OF COURSE our little one woke us up at 6:00 am!!!! UGH! I was praying for a 9:00 am of opening gifts but you just have to roll with it. This year was all about trains. We (hubby and myself) got him the train table and  hubby's mom and dad got him the Chuggington trains with a carrying case. My brother and sister in law got him a collapsible travel train set. We are not BIG into Thomas but he does know about Chuggington. I like the characters better in Chuggington than Thomas. Trains are trains. This little boy knows a lot about trains.





[caption id="attachment_1035" align="aligncenter" width="300" caption="discovering his train table for the first time"][/caption]



 





[caption id="attachment_1036" align="aligncenter" width="300" caption="thank you mommy and daddy"][/caption]



 





[caption id="attachment_1037" align="aligncenter" width="199" caption="he loves to open gifts"][/caption]



 





[caption id="attachment_1038" align="aligncenter" width="199" caption="oh wow more trains"][/caption]



 





[caption id="attachment_1039" align="aligncenter" width="300" caption="a travel train set! thank you Uncle John and Aunt Amy"][/caption]



This guy never sits down for more than 10 minutes so once the trains came out I did not hear a peep out of him for 45 minutes. I kept looking to see if he was still alive! It was a great Christmas Morning!

Everything Merry

[caption id="attachment_1022" align="aligncenter" width="300" caption="making homemade sugar cookies for Santa and Jesus!"][/caption]

Our festives began early Friday making my homemade sugar cookie dough so it could chill for awhile until ready for cookie cutting time. It is so easy to make these sugar cookies and I love that my son loves to bake right along with me. He loves to help roll out the dough with the rolling pin.

[caption id="attachment_1023" align="aligncenter" width="300" caption="my lil helper"][/caption]

We made cookies both for Santa and Jesus. Santa got the snowman and Jesus the angel. We left a note for Santa and Jesus. All month my guy has been taking about Santa coming in a sleigh and Jesus parking his car in the garage. So the note he wanted me to write included both those thoughts to Santa and Jesus. Here at our house we have really talked about Jesus so he seems to think that Jesus will also come to our house when Santa is to come. I really like his thought process. Don't ya just love the innocence of children? So precious!

[caption id="attachment_1024" align="aligncenter" width="300" caption="a note for Santa and Jesus"][/caption]

After we placed our cookies by the fireplace we began our Holiday book reading! We have several books we have been reading but only a few we have pick for reading before Christmas Day! You can see both books in the above picture. One focuses on Jesus birth and the other is a classic Santa read. We all sat around the Christmas tree listening to daddy read to us all.

[caption id="attachment_1025" align="aligncenter" width="199" caption="sitting on daddy's lap"][/caption]

[caption id="attachment_1027" align="aligncenter" width="300" caption="intently listening to the story"][/caption]

[caption id="attachment_1029" align="aligncenter" width="300" caption="all wrapped and ready to go"][/caption]