Christmas Eve photos

Handsome boys before mass...

All five kids, together, dressed up, and smiling for the picture?  It's a Christmas miracle!

Winter in VA

Yep, we drove home from laser tag on Christmas Eve day in Dad's Mustang.  With the top down.  Because it was 82 degrees.

Growth charts

James had made growth charts for Lila and Teddy years ago.  He'd started two for our boys, but never quite got around to finishing them (plus, the wall was working just fine!).  Prompted by our repainting of said wall and the arrival of baby #3 for Brian and Rebecca, it was time to revive the project.  

The woodworking is the easy part of this project.  It's hugely time consuming to measure, mark, tape, and paint the board itself.   It's not one of those projects where doing multiples takes only a little bit more time, either. 

Shepherd was pretty excited to help open his present.  As soon as it was open, he tried to back himself up to it to get measured.  Brian and Rebecca said he's seen his siblings get measured often enough that he knew exactly what it was!

 

 

Trumpet lessons

Brady brought his trumpet to the beach to show off his new skill.  (He has come a LONG way since the fall!)  Of course, all the kids wanted to try it out so he ended up giving Lila and Teddy trumpet lessons.  

 

 

Beckett, round 2!

We offered to babysit for Skyler and Beckett so Heather and Blake could go see Star Wars.  It was a great way to spend a rainy afternoon!  Beckett was a sweetheart and gave us some smiles before snuggling in for a long nap.  Skylar kept the boys hopping with lots of different toys; we averted a near meltdown over watching a movie during lunch with the diversion of building a fort to eat in.

 

Christmas wish list

I love looking back at the kids' Christmas lists, but I'm not always great about saving them.  

Elf movie night

We invited Rudy's whole class over for cookie decorating and an Elf movie night.  This isn't my first rodeo, so I had a slew of activities planned to keep the kids busy.  (I've long since learned that a large number of kids in a house with no focused activities can lead to disaster!) 

They decorated cookies, ate pizza, played "Pass left, pass right," took a few photos with some props (much less of a hit than I anticipated), and watched the movie.  We had some complaints when a few boys couldn't settle down for the movie, but it went pretty well overall.  Rudy was thrilled that even his teacher joined in the fun; Mr. Smith ate dinner with the kids but then stayed downstairs with the adults and the grown up grape juice while the kids watched the movie upstairs. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Christmas cookies!

In my book, any time after Thanksgiving weekend if fair game for all Christmas preparations!  We did our gingerbread houses (complete with hot glue to hold it all together, a true family tradition) and started Christmas cookies.  Nathan and Sydney were more than happy to help out, knowing they'd get a few samples along the way.

New rug

The new rug is a hit with kids!

 

Oh Christmas tree

We finally decided to update our "second tree" from the freebie I'd gotten on black Friday several years ago and we went big (literally) with a nine footer.  We seem to be missing a box of ornaments that we haven't yet uncovered after the flood last year, so the decorations are much more sparse than usual.  

During the tree decorating, the reindeer made their annual appearance and brought PJs for the boys.  You probably can't read it, but the shirts say "Merry Rex-mas."  Bwa-ha-ha...