Christmas Eve, 2016

Story told by: Henry

It’s Christmas Eve! Santa comes tonight, and we can’t wait!!

We woke up at Gma and Gpa’s house to find that Elf had found an awesome new jacket. So funny!

Gpa took us out for a ride with his tractor.

Mommy has memories of doing this as a kid, so it was fun for her to watch us!

I wanted to ride a bike, and everyone knows that bikes are safest while wearing a catcher’s helmet.

Next up was decorating those sugar cookies we spent hours baking!

Mommy’s cousin, Brittany, was a big decorating helper!

Lainey made a special cookie for Gma.

Gma loved it!

The cookie crew!

Mommy and Uncle Jar Jar! (Uncle Jar Jar and Uncle Jeff just flew in from Phoenix.)

Lainey was happy to have a coloring buddy.

After naps, we put our church clothes on and got ready for Christmas Eve service.

Brody’s general theme at this age is “I don’t want to cooperate.”

Uncle Jar Jar couldn’t fit church clothes in his bag, so he wore Gma’s sweater to church.

We arrived about 20 minutes early to church, so we went to check out the fire trucks at a nearby fire station.

Almost time for church!

I rotated between laps for most of the service.

Then it was time for the candlelight part of the service. Lainey was big enough to hold the candle on her own.

I’m sure I would have been fine with an open flame on my own, but everyone seemed to think that I needed some supervision by Uncle Jeff and Uncle Jar Jar.

After church Brittany helped us to make reindeer food to sprinkle outside for Santa’s reindeer.

The reindeer need LOTS of sprinkles!

I poured at least half of this container into the bag.

After we mixed the bag up, Brittany took us outside to sprinkle the food in the grass. I hope the reindeer enjoyed it!

We always do our big dinner on Christmas Eve, so once the food was ready, we all dug in!

Brody mostly loved the rolls.

While we were at church, Santa must have delivered two early presents. We were very excited to find these!

I opened this present to find new PJs!

And new books!

While Lainey was having an epic Christmas Eve meltdown, we got some pictures of Brody and I in our matching PJs.

Then Lainey recovered and joined us for pictures.

Lainey drew a picture for Santa to leave with his milk and cookies.

Before going to bed, Daddy read us our new Christmas books.

Ready to head to sleep because Santa comes tonight!!!