Christmas Eve!

It's almost here - the countdown was almost complete.  We spent the day in our PJs, then late in the afternoon we got ready to go to church.  Church started at 4pm and we planned to get there around 3:15 to make sure we could get the seats that my parents started saving at 3pm.  When we showed up at 3:15pm, church was 3/4 full!  It was so busy, that mass actually started early at 3:45pm because the church was at capacity.  This was a looong stretch for the boys to sit quietly, and they did a great job.  We packed a variety of snacks, new coloring books, a maze book for Karsten and a sticker book for Liam.  Thankfully, the boys did a fantastic job! I miss going to midnight mass, but we can start that again when the boys are older.

After church, we went back to my parents for happy hour before dinner.  The boys were excited to see the musical santa hat!


We had to do our group Christmas pictures before everyone got changed out of their dress clothes.


We have the dancing santa hat to thank for this picture and the boys actually looking at the camera!



We played checkers - or Karsten's version of something like checkers.


Liam had some opinions about how checkers should be played.  Between the two of them, I'm sure it was quite the game.


Liam checked out dinner while Grandma cooked - I think he may have been hoping he could sweet talk her into one of these.  Little did he know they were uncooked. I think he settled for an m&m.


When I was little, I always wanted to open one present on Christmas eve.  The boys got to open this present that my dad made for them.  Each of them got a wooden helicopter and a plane.


One day in early December, Karsten told me that Papa was going to build him a jet airplane.  After he went to bed that night, I called to see if my dad knew anything about this.  He said, 'yep, he asked for one and said please, so I'm going to build one.'  Karsten was so excited when he unwrapped it!


Can you tell he liked his plane and helicopter?  They immediately started flying around!


Thanks Papa!


Liam got the same helicopter as Karsten but he got a biplane which was very cool.  It has a working propeller on the front that he had fun spinning.


Karsten was still flying his plane around.


Then my parents got to open a present from us.  We went to Disney World in October and I made them a Shutterfly book of our trip.


I think they liked it!


It was a wonderful trip and it's so fun to look through the book and remember everything!


Then it was time to get ready for bed.  Liam had his blankets (ee ees) so he was ready!


The boys were checking out the plate and mug for Santa.  We also put down some reindeer food (oats with glitter) outside to make sure the reindeer had enough energy for their journey!


Much to Karsten's chagrin, Liam *may* have taken a bite of one of Santa's cookie.


We wrapped up the day with a Mickey Mouse Christmas book, then it was off to bed so Santa could visit!