Christmas Eve

What a fun busy day! I was home with the boys while Tim worked a half day. His company does an awesome Christmas Eve lunch and then they get to go home to be with family.

This morning, the boys woke up to a note and gifts from Eflie Jim.

Love this note!

Goodies from Elfie Jim

Christmas Dinosaur PJs

This morning, my friend Jenny and her son Wyatt (went to pre-school with Cole) came over the bake cookies for Santa and to play. It was a fun filled morning with these silly boys.

Crazy crew!

I think Cole has a mouth full of cookie dough. We introduced Wyatt to the wonderfulness of cookie dough. =)

Cute buddies

Always turns silly

All three

This afternoon, Tim and the boys went to Target to get wrapping paper and a few other things. I asked him to bring me some tape because the ONE tape roll he had previously bought me was no where near enough for Christmas Eve wrapping. While they were all in Target, the power went out! Yes, complete power outage while they were in Target!! They were all the way in the back and apparently, it was really dark for a second before the emergency lights came on. Kinda scary but kind of a fun adventure too. The crummy thing about it was that I had our nice pot roast in the crock pot. No power means no dinner! We ran around the house in the semi-dark trying to get ready for Christmas Eve church service. Before we left, it came back on (YAY!) but then went off again just as we were leaving (BOO!). I crossed my fingers that it would come on / stay on so we'd have dinner.

I think I've got enough tape now. =)

Man, I love these three.

Tried for family photo before church.

Hard to believe they're getting so big! And I may be partial but they're handsome boys too!

The boys love the Christmas displays at church, especially the trains.

I love church on Christmas Eve. It makes the day perfect and reminds us why we have Christmas.

We have started a tradition where the boys get their presents from us on Christmas Eve. And they get to open any received from out-of-town friends / family. This lets us enjoy and appreciate these gifts instead of getting overwhelmed on Christmas Day. We let Christmas Day be about Jesus' birthday and Santa's visit. We had a nice family dinner (Reminder to self: take a dinner picture next year) and then the present opening began!

Christmas jammies!!

The Target trip was partially so they could pick out their own wrapping paper. Gifts from Mom & Dad.

Rock-Paper-Scissors to see who starts first. We go back and forth opening one gift at a time. Mom's gotta be able to take pictures. =)

They LOVED their "c" and "e" mugs. They've taken to drinking milk and/or orange juice out of mugs so got them their own.

Marshmallow shooters.....

I thought Eli was going to knock me over with a hug on this one. A Carolina Panthers calendar. He is so his Momma's boy.

Minion calendar.

Nerd alert....electronic pencil sharpener. And they loved it!

Rope ladder from Aunt Cary to go in their Ninja / Spartan course.

And some monkey bars.

More gifts from Aunt Cary - awesome Icebreaker shirts.

Eli opening his gift from Cole. The boys absolutely loved going on a one-on-one shopping trip with me to pick out something for their brother. It was super sweet.