Christmas Eve

This year we had our gift exchange with Ken’s family on Christmas Eve in the afternoon and I quite liked it.  It just seemed like a fun way to kick off the holidays. (Do you love the Charlie Brown Tree in this first picture? It’s one of my new favorite decorations at Grandma house!)Neil loved all the paper. And I think Spencer helped almost every single person open their gift.  He was having so much fun.Spencer had to make sure that his money got in his picture too -  he cracks me up.  He has loved his spaceship puzzle and it’s pretty cool because the back of the puzzle is like a coloring page of the front. He and Abbie have started coloring some of it and had a blast.Abbie was our bow collector.  She now has a display on her dresser if anyone is interested.Neil thought his gift was for eating.  After Spencer helped him unwrap it we gave him some of the wrapping paper to play with.  I thought I was doing a really good job about getting him another piece to play with before they got too soggy to come apart, but later when we were home we discovered some paper stuck to the roof of his mouth – YUCK!Our family had the “biggest” gift and the kids were so excited to tear into it.…but all they found was a bunch of stuffing and some Almond Roca tins….huh…oh, and some gift certificates to Boondocks.  Thanks Steph and McKay!After all the fun we went back home and made rolls and a veggie tray for the Christmas Eve party at Scott and Steph’s home. It was a nice relaxing night.  Food, family and Christmas excitement building.