Christmas Eve

The kids enjoyed decorating GFCF cut-out cookies that I had made. They actually came out quite tasty...a little fragile but still the kids were able to enjoy decorating them. Santa had quite a bit of GFCF cookies this year. We made meringues, chocolate chip and sugar cookie cut-outs. Not bad at all.

Brian, Katheryn and Ethan decorating cookies for Santa

Katheryn showcasing her handywork

My parents came over on Christmas eve to witness our tradition of letting the kids out onto the lawn to sprinkle "reindeer food" for Santa's reindeer and Katheryn's reading of "Twas the Night Before Christmas." We bundled the kids up and headed outdoors. Katheryn went next door to see if our new neighbors' daughter would like to join us and when we all got outside, Matt, Katheryn and Ethan had disappeared into the neighbors' home. We waited and waited in the chilly wind for what seemed like 30 minutes. Matt's parents went back inside to wait. The cold MD air was not what they were used to. Finally Matt reappears with the kids and off they went all over the yard to sprinkle their reindeer food. They had a blast.

Ethan and Brian sprinkling reindeer food

Ethan trying to figure out the perfect place to sprinkle his reindeer food

Once back inside the warmth of our home, Katheryn set up her bench and began to read "Twas the Night Before Christmas." She seemed a little annoyed at having to read this story...she feels that she is getting too old to have to read this every year. Once her story is read, we start a movie, "The Polar Express" however this year we decided to change things up a bit and we played the ever so classic, "A Christmas Story." About half way through the movie, we sent the kids to bed since they were having trouble keeping their eyes open and then Matt and I went to work. We had a train table to put together and many more presents to wrap and display.

Katheryn reading "Twas the Night Before Christmas" in her pj's

While Matt cleaned up the basement play area, I was upstairs putting together a huge train set and a basketball hoop. I tested out the train set and didn't realize that it would toot so loud. Matt came upstairs to let me know that if we wanted to keep the kids asleep in bed that turning on the train was not a great idea. oops. Once we wrapped up the remainder of the gifts we decided to tackle the train table. After pulling out the pieces, we got to step 2 and for some reason, the holes did not line up. We were baffled and it's midnight. After sitting there with the directions in hand, Matt finally figured out that step 2 didn't really matter and that it was just illustrating what it would line up like. hmm. Anyways, we made it over that hurdle and 2.5 hours later the table was set. We then went to bed.