Christmas Recap

Christmas Eve Day was one of the first days last week we got to sleep in.  We were pretty excited about this possibility; it's one of the perks of having kids that are older - they can fend for themselves in the morning.

When we woke up we realized that it had snowed a lot.  A LOT.  But then we realized that our neighbor was outside and had snowblowed half our driveway!  We raced getting dressed and headed out feeling really guilty (but incredibly grateful!).  Matt let us borrow his snowblower to finish off the job.  Afterward we headed to the Donut Connection to celebrate Christmas Eve and get it started right!

We spent the rest of the day relaxing and goofing around the house.  I had two church services to play for that night.  We chose to go together to the later service at 10pm.  My parents decided to go with and stopped by early so we could make a quick pass through Bloomington to see an amazing tree lit up:

Please excuse the big white dots...it was the beginning of our second round of snow for Christmas.

But this tree is quite beautiful.  It's made the national news and is listed in the paper as to what times the owner keeps the lights turned on.  When we arrived there were at least five cars parked around and lots of people out admiring this view and taking pictures. 

It was a late night getting back home and Jake was really worried we wouldn't get home before midnight when Santa arrived.  We finally managed to convince him that Santa began his rounds at midnight, but we weren't the first stop.

Once we were home though, we wasted no time in setting out Santa's goodies and making sure the stockings were ready.

 

 

Jake had written an note earlier in the day to Santa that he left...

He had knitted about eight small hats in school and left one for one of Santa's elves.

The large picture of a battleship was because on a website earlier Jake had written to Santa and Santa wrote back how he liked model boats and planes.  Jake thought Santa would like to see the model he has in his room.  Jake left instructions that Santa could take the hat, but that the picture needed to stay.

Christmas morning, per Maddie's request, we opened our door and cranked the Christmas music up really loud to wake everyone up. 

No one moved.

So we cranked it up louder and suddenly Jake came shooting out of his room and beelined down the stairs without a passing "good morning" or "Merry Christmas".  We yelled for him to stop, and he went back to Maddie's room to wake her up - though I'm pretty sure she was faking sleeping.

Downstairs for a first round of gift opening - stockings!

After that the kids were sent up to get dressed for church and Mike headed outside to shovel.  Again.

But he sure looked festive...

I actually changed out of my pajamas and we managed to get just enough of the driveway shoveled to get the truck out.  It was Christmas Day and neither of us wanted to be on work duty.

Soon we were heading out the door for church with two good looking kids!  Jake was very excited because this wasn't a clip-on tie (he's too old for that, he informed us) and it wasn't a zip tie.  This was the real deal.  Mike had to tie it for him and Jake has already mentioned that he thinks he needs a couple more ties to wear to church.  Maddie was excited because she found another great twirling dress this year without even trying.

I'll follow up with the rest of the story tomorrow...