Christmas 2015

Christmas Eve is also my grandmother's birthday, so we headed over for sandwiches and birthday cake for lunch.  Collin and Maya were on point to "help" B blow out her candles - 

And before she had released her breath, Collin had put out the flames!

Happy 89th birthday, Great Grandma Betty!

After the birthday party, we attended a service at our church and came home for as calm an evening as we could muster hours before Santa made his magical rounds.  Collin and Maya dressed in Christmas pajamas and took some photos with our elf, Holly, before trying to settle down for bed.  

I was pretty anti-Elf on the Shelf, wanting to focus on the meaning of Christmas vs. good behavior for 24 days because a stuffed elf will report bad behavior to Santa.  But kindergarten broke me, not wanting Collin to be the only one without the fun experience!  Holly, our elf, was in a different place each morning bearing a Jesse Tree ornament.  So we tried to tie in how the stuffed elf would help us worship the newborn King!

My favorite part about Holly was that she was a motivator to get Collin out of bed at 6:05 am during the Christmas season.  My kids had low expectations on her locations, so our elf did not create elaborate scenes or make any messes.  We felt quite accomplished that Collin and Maya believed she magically moved everyday . . . though some mornings she may have been hiding under a dish towel to switch spots when Collin stumbled in for breakfast!

Christmas morning we spotted Santa's footprints and were thrilled St. Nick had visited!

I was worried that Santa was more generous with Collin's gifts than Maya.  But really, Santa could have gifted Maya with 3 individual coloring pages with Frozen characters and she would have been satisfied.  A fleece blanket with their images produced this reaction:

They were slightly excited

Gloves in her stocking were worth of a dance!

The five-year-old.  He asked Santa for a compass (check), to have magic (Santa brought him a magic kit), a sparkly shirt (huh?), for it to snow, a million dollars, to go to Dave and Busters and for all the desserts in the world.  After seeing the two gifts from Santa, Collin walked around the tree in search of his million dollars.  He was disappointed his last four requests weren't granted.  We need to set better expectations in 2016!

We have lots of male super-hero dress up clothes, so we needed to beef up our girl power costumes!

Christmas Day lunch brought the family, and having four young kids together brought about a little "Whip, Nae Nae" family dance party.

Maya with cousin River -

The kid table -

This girl LOVES her older cousin, Stella, sticking to her like glue anytime she visits -

Swinging in sleeveless shirts on Christmas Day in Texas!

Some of the gang -

After my side of the family headed home, Maya took a short nap to prepare for party # 2 with Cas' family.  Grandma Libia brought this hat which was a huge hit!

The kids danced and played, we ate and enjoyed celebrating together -

We had a joyous Christmas day and season!