Christmas II

Christmas Eve it snowed.  SNOWED!  It was so pretty!

  

Shelby wouldn’t stop eating the snow.

We waited for Jeff to get home from work (they let him off early because of the weather) and then we drove to Nonnie & Poppy’s house for dinner, our traditional home video watching, and Christmas karaoke.

Dinner was Italian (fettuccini alfredo and spaghetti with meatballs) homemade by Nonnie and it was AMAZING!

We headed home with the kids in time for putting cookies out for Santa and a good night’s sleep for the kiddos.  Shelby often comes into our room during the night but she told me “If I wake up during the night I will listen for a HO HO HO before I get out of bed and if I hear a HO HO HO I will stay in bed.”

Since the kids had been sleeping in until about 8:30 on our Christmas Break from school, we planned for the big Jones fam to show up by 8 am to get there before the kids woke up and to see them get their gifts that Santa had left.  When we were little we always stayed in our rooms until everyone was ready (Dad always took FOREVER setting up the video camera.)  I guess we forgot to tell Shelby this rule….

It was about 8:05 when I was in the kitchen on the phone with Nonnie as she was telling me they were almost there, when I saw a FLASH run by me.  Shelby had sprinted from her room straight to the living room as fast as she could.  She then excitedly yelled to us that he did come, because the cookies were eaten and the milk had been drunk.  She was so excited about that that she didn’t even notice the presents sitting out (Santa doesn’t wrap!)  I had to tell her to look around and see what Santa had left for her.  She loved it.

Santa left Cole a new “omputa” but he was most excited about the train set that Mommy and Daddy had stayed up gluing on his train table the night before.

 

When the whole fam got to our house, the gift opening commenced.

    The joy on the faces of Shelby and Coleman just made this the best Christmas so far.  Their anticipation and excitement is just the best!

After all the gift-giving was finished, we ate a wonderful Christmas morning breakfast, then bid Mill and Luke a SAFE farewell as they headed off the the blizzard in Oklahoma.  Soon after, everyone else left and we got to enjoy a little nap before heading up to Gram and Grandpa’s house!