Christmas Eve and Christmas Day!

There is always so much excitement as a child building up to Christmas. I wish that excitement continued into adulthood. While, I still love Christmas, there is nothing quite like the anticipation you see in a child.
For Christmas Eve we invited my brother Chris' family, Natalie, and my parents to join us to celebrate.

We had soup and s'mores and brownies and then played games.  

We played the saran wrap game where you have to open a present wrapped in saran wrap with gloves and a hat until someone rolls the dice to take it and gets it open. The candy cane game where you see how many candy canes you can get on a plate in 1 minutes with your mouth, and the reindeer game where you have to be the first to blow up 8 balloons and make reindeer antlers out of panty hose.  

The kids had fun being silly.

All the Texas grandkids.  

Grandma and Grandpa with their grandkids.  

Our family on the night before Christmas. We sang hymns and read the Christmas story from the bible and had a fun night as a family.

The next morning Christmas arrived!!

I love the peace and quiet early Christmas morning when all you have is the light from the tree and you are waiting for the kids to wake up to see what Santa brought. 

The kids waited for Deck the Halls from Manheim Steamroller to play and they ran downstairs to look for the pickle on the tree. Several years ago someone told us that finding the pickle on Christmas morning was a German tradition and they gave us a pickle ornament and whoever finds it gets to open the first present. Ragnar isn't sure that it is a German tradition, but it is fun anyway. 

Deacon was delighted to find the pickle. 

The presents begin.. 

Channing got a vtech watch she wanted, a fingerling, lol dolls, squishamallows, bows, barbies and barbie clothes..etc. (its a lot of fun to buy for a girl her age ;)). Ella only had beanie boos on her Christmas list and a unicorn pillow. So she got both of those and a chrome book as well as she has to do most of her projects from school at home without one.  

Deacon got a hotwheels garage, paw patrol characters, a football, soccerball, and a helmet. Cavin got several games, a math game, Battleship, a snake game, an RC car, helmet, a paper airplane making book, canvas' to paint, and many other random fun things. Really they got their present a month early in a new room remodel and bunk beds.  

They seemed to be excited and I love their matching pajamas.  

The kids enjoy taking selfies.  

It was a nice morning together. It was the first time in 5 years we haven't had someone staying with us on Christmas morning, so it was kind of nice to just have our little family together.  

Ragnar unfortunately had to work the Rockets game that day, so we went over to my parents house and hung out and had a nice dinner. We put together a puzzle and played games. As you can tell, my dad was done with Channing's watch making so much noise! :) haha 

We had a wonderful Christmas and December flew by!