Christmas Eve

Christmas Eve was a bit insane this year.  We managed to get everyone everyone dressed and out of the house in time for church.  By the time everyone was dressed, I was pretty much ready to be done.  [Side note, how many times have I written, "we managed to..." this year?]  Our rockstar neighbors line the street with luminaria, giving Santa an illuminated landing strip to aim for.  The girls inspected their work before we headed off to church.

The girls and Juli.

Pretty dresses.  Sparkly shoes. 

 Eli and his Sophie.  Roby was there too.  Just imagine another picture, that looks exactly like this one.  (Switch the blue shirt out for a white one. Bam.  We're good to go.)

The girls were angels in the chaotic FCCB nativity thing (pageant? play? illicit photo op?)  Actually, Sarah Jane was an angel but Anna claimed to be a butterfly.  She was therefore technically part of the barn animal crew.  Grandma sat with both of them while they semi-listened to the story and Eli and Roby made lots of animal noises in the pews.

 

After church we headed to 690 for sit-down dinner for 26.  Nine children six and under.  Chaos reigned.  Roby and Eli were somewhat uncooperative in their photo shoot.  This was just the beginning of the uncooperativeness.

 I have about 10 of these.

 Eli finally stopped trying to eat Roby.  Unfortunately they were not looking at me.  I gave up after this.

 We managed to get all nine children on the couch for a picture.  This was accomplished with a pre-dinner chocolate bribe.  For the record, Thomas would prefer chocolate without mint.  (Note to self for next year.)

After dinner Zeke read Twas the Night Before Christmas.  His audience quintupled compared to last year (when only Sarah Jane listened.) This year we were all wowed by Reid's ability to finish each sentence with the correct word. Very impressive.

Merry Christmas to all and to all a good __________!