Christmas Eve!!

Yay! Pictures from Christmas Eve!! Who is ready for the extravaganza to begin? Let's start here with the finishing up of a few Advent calendars/countdowns.

Last Christmas, after everything was on crazy clearance, I snatched this up. This is the Fisher-Price Imaginext Advent Calendar and it is so cute! Each day was some guy, a tool, something that person used, etc. Very cute! We ended up getting a fireman, construction guy, policeman and all of their equipment and such. Well, silly me, I only bought ONE. Hello...? I have TWO boys... Luckily, I had a few of these Imaginext guys that I had saved for "prizes" and some other guys from a Bat Cave that Rachel gave us. They boys - all the boys - loved playing Batman!

I know, I know. It doesn't really "scream" Christmas, but we did get to that. It wasn't left out. Remember we were working though this book. After breakfast/dinner we would ready the stories and have a little talk about the things that were going on and the previous stories. The boys really loved learning about Baby Jesus, Mary, and Joseph. Which, ok, again I say...teaching the boys about Joseph is difficult. Yes, he's a kind of dad, but not his real dad...but his real dad is father to everyone and Joseph is a helper dad... It was confusing to Andy. Alex knew who everyone in the manger was, but Andy was the one with questions. Maybe he can help explain it to Alex next season. Anyway, by Christmas Eve they BOTH had the story down and knew exactly what went one that night in Bethlehem :)

 Later that morning, they boys were telling me their favorite ornaments from the tree. I LOVE that Andy calls the glitter balls "sprinkle ornaments" - it is so adorable!! Alex loved the football one...and tried to throw it. I'm glad I caught it. That guy has quite the arm!

Of course, for the 800th time... The Polar Express was showing. I couldn't you if it was on TV or if was the DVD he was watching. He LOVES that movie. I downloaded some of the music and had it playing in the car. As soon as they heard the first 3 seconds of the title song, they would squeal and giggle and both would shout, "Polar Ta Pess!!!!!"

While everyone was occupied with the movie, I got to work on getting the roast all fancied up. And, yes, I called it our "roast beast" LOL Gotta love Dr. Seuss, right?

The mail came, too! And my present to myself showed up at the door : ) YAY!! You may see me link to Catholic Mom here, on Facebook, or on Twitter, right? Well the creator of Catholic Mom wrote this book. I can't wait to get her other one, too! I think that one will be my birthday gift to myself. Anyway, she is fabulous and I can't wait to really start reading it... I'm a bit behind on things, can you tell?

We headed to Mass after a quick nap. I wish I had taken pictures of our Altar decorated for Christmas, but I feel that's a bit on the rude side snapping pictures while people are trying to pray. So, when someone updates the website and add those pictures, I'll link to it. It is so beautiful!

One our way home, the boys were getting hungry and jumpy and all kinds of excited for the ringing of Santa's bells. 

 So before bed after reading the story of Baby Jesus from Luke's Gospel and The Polar Express, we made sure we set out cookies for Santa. Andy is making that face because he thought for sure that Santa would share one right now with him... He forgot he already had 4...and brushed his teeth... LOL Silly boy...  Don't you just love his pajamas?!

Time for sleep, boys! They were so excited and tired, but they went right to bed :) They definitely wanted to make sure that they were quiet enough to hear the reindeer and the bells. I wonder what he is going to bring......