"Designated" Christmas Eve and Christmas Morning

This year we have Christmas three weekends in a row!  We celebrated with our nuclear family this weekend (December 9-10), celebrate next weekend with Grandma and Grandpa T, and celebrate on Christmas weekend with Grandma and Grandpa K!  Anyway, we had a lot of fun this year on "designated" Christmas Eve and Christmas Day.  We treated Friday evening as Christmas Eve and after a yummy meal of crockpot pesto ranch chicken and noodles (kids' choice), we made our traditional graham cracker houses. 

Just like last year, we had a boys' house and a girls' house, only this year was Larkyn's first year being big enough to help!

They turned out pretty good!

The girls did a great job decorating the walls of the house!

Daddy and Colton made a cool one with gummy bug sidewalk ;)

Kids in bed and ready for Christmas morning!

We started the morning with new jammies: Minne Mouse for Larkyn, Elsa for Summer, and Paw Patrol for Colton.

Then (as the kids love to do) we reenacted the Christmas story with the Little People nativity.

I was the narrator and everyone had their parts.  My favorite this year was when Larkyn (the angel) said her part "Do not be afraid, I bring you good news!" in her little Loo voice!  She knew it by heart and I didn't even have to tell her the line!

After reading about Jesus' birth in Luke 2, we bumped to Matthew 2 and read about the Wisemen.  Our Wisemen above are traveling from afar...

After traveling from far (many laps around the coffee table) our Wise Men finally got to Baby Jesus!

Stocking Time!  This year (as in the past) their stockings were filled with coins.  We also added gifts in the love language "words of affirmation" this year as each kid had 5 notes of things Mommy and Daddy love/appreciate about them in their stocking to read together.

Summer made her siblings notepads out of construction paper with sweet notes!

This year, for the first time, we took the kids shopping to buy presents for each other.  We took them to the dollar store last weekend and they each brought their own money.  It was a bit of a circus with three kids and only two parents juggling who had what kids in order to keep all the kids' presents for each other a secret but we did it!  All three kids wrapped their own presents for their siblings and put them under the tree, and the kids were most excited to open each others' presents and wanted to do that first!  Summer picked out a wand and crown set for Larkyn and a construction vehicle for Colton.

Larkyn picked out a paw patrol puzzle for Summer.

Larkyn got  a Lighting McQueen Christmas book for Colton.

Colton bought a little baby for Larkyn

Colton picked out a recorder for Summer

All three kids got books with their current interests - Larkyn got Daniel Tiger, Summer got the "Case for Christ for kids" series books, and Colton got Paw Patrol Books.

They all enjoyed their books, but Colton's response to his Paw Patrol books was my favorite!  He LOVES Paw Patrol right now (can you tell by his jammies and hat??)!

He looked at them throughout the buzz of the morning whenever he wasn't opening a gift!

Larkyn was most excited about her purple pony!  Originally Paul and I hadn't gotten this gift for her but she picked it out for her angel tree gift (for a kid in need) and kept talking about it over the past few weeks and wanting to go "pet it" in Mommy's room, so we ended up changing out what we were going to give her and giving her one of these instead.  It was a total hit!

She loves combing the "tangles" out of pony's hair and using the mini hairdryer :)

Summer's favorite gift was a magic show set where she can learn tricks to put on shows for family and friends.

She got right to work learning her tricks!

Colton was pretty excited about his new car mat rug.

and his Mac truck for Lightning McQueen

After presents, it was pancake and bacon time...with a the favorite toppings!

Daddy makes awesome pancakes!

All three kids got family games, and we had so much fun playing all three games after breakfast!  Colton got a Lightning McQueen matching game and we all had fun with that!

Larkyn got a Kids version of Sequence and loved it!

Then little Larkyn was ready for a nap.  I love capturing how she looks with her blankie and her fingers in her mouth as this is a common way to find her!

While Larkyn was napping the big kids and the parents had fun with Summer's new game called Blokis.  Really fun for all of us!  We also read some Paw Patrol as we cuddled on the couch :). 

It was truly a great family time, and I am so thankful for my family and for the reason that we are celebrating - God's Son Jesus!  HE is why we celebrate!