Christmas Eve

Even when I cram December full of holiday events to drag the season out as long as possible it still comes and goes so quickly! Christmas Eve was spent cooking, catching up on our Christmas cartoons and getting ready for mass and Mexican dinner. We took a break out of our busyness to open our gifts from Oma.

She wraps her gifts in tissue paper to send in the mail and I've got to say best idea ever for little ones, they were able to quickly tear into them for once!

Johanna got her first Beatrix Potter Peter Rabbit book. They were some of my favorite books to read with my Grandma so I'm excited she is going to start a collection of her own.

Last year we ended up in the back row of the church hall for Christmas Eve mass. This year Gigi, Grandpa, Grandma, me and Jeff, Johanna, JJ, Ann, Joe, Lisa and baby Joey decided to get there an hour early and we still ended up in the school gymnasium for a separate mass. I won't complain, at least it means thousands of people were celebrating Jesus' birthday! I must say though having church in a gymnasium was entertaining in itself. We watched one lady fall down the bleachers aka the nosebleeds while coming down for Eucharist...don't worry she wasn't hurt so its okay that we laughed with her ;) JJ was Mr. entertainer cracking everyone up with his little giggles and flirting with the young ladies behind us. Then Johanna let me know she had to go potty then took off racing down the gym to the girls locker room while I tried to keep up in my heels and avoid falling over like bleachers lady.

Since we were in the school we went by Johanna's class to show Gigi and Grandpa. The walls were stripped for Christmas break but there were a few crafts left hanging on the walls. Must have put JJ in a trance with their beauty... this picture cracks me up!

I think we got some good use out of Johanna's Christmas dress this year!

After mass we headed back to Grandma and Grandpa's for our second annual Mexican Christmas Eve dinner. This year we had enchiladas and tacos and they were super tasty.

The kids played while we put Lori's mixer to use and made some homemade marshmallows.

I think the kids were working extra hard to make sure Santa saw them being nice ;) We got to facetime on our phones with my Sister while the kiddos opened their gifts from Max and Leo. I love technology!

After a late night out we made it back home to our own beds. Charlie the tree looked pretty happy after Santa came.

Mowgli was very curious what was going on. It was hard to sleep waiting for the sun to rise! I am glad the Christmas Story was on all night long to keep me entertained :)