Christmas Eve

Bryan and I have started a kind of tradition of waiting to shop until the weekend right before Christmas. It works out really well because we generally find that a lot of retailers have steeply marked down their prices and we wind up with some great deals. So, Sunday we packed up and headed out to La Cantera - they have a great Santa out there. It was cold (okay - it was only 39) so we bundled up and got some shopping done too.

Then on Christmas Eve, I spent the morning doing some cleaning at the house I clean for extra money while Bryan and the girls picked up the back yard in case the kids wanted to play back there. Then we got dressed and headed up to Austin to go to the Candlelight service at my Grandfather's church. It was beautiful and we took a family photo. Then we went back to his house and ate dinner and the girls opened their gifts from Austin Grandpa.

Afterwards, we headed home to get ready for Santa:

Bryan went right upstairs to the craft room and painted (free-hand) this plate to put the cookies on for Santa. (It was a plain white plate from Wal-mart and he used the same porcelain markers I used on the ornaments, then baked it in the oven).

The girls helped me decorate and bake some cookies to put on the plate - Christmas tree cookies were the order for the night!

Then the girls sprinkled their reindeer food on the front walk so the reindeer would get some food too. It was so cute. Tobi kept thinking she could hear sleigh bells ringing and when it was time to put the reindeer food out she got scared that the reindeer were going to show up right then. I had to hold her hand and go with her to get her to sprinkle her reindeer food and Belle ran out trying to eat the food!

After they sprinkled reindeer food I told the girls it was time for them to go to bed because of course, Santa will not come if they are awake and Zoe (clever girl that she is) asked how Santa was going to get in because he's supposed to come down the chimney. I told her he has his ways, but he was probably going to come in the dog door. So she said she was going to go check and see if she saw anything. I still had the camera from catching the reindeer food so I was able to catch her looking for the sleigh in the backyard.

We FINALLY got the girls in bed and then Santa's elves started hustling. I made the cake for Christmas dinner - my first Buche de Noel and Bryan (yes Bryan) started wrapping gifts. Then Bryan went to bed and I finished wrapping. I finally went to bed at 3am.