A White Christmas at Nana's

We spent Christmas eve at my mom's house, with my Eric and Jessica and baby Preston. We read Christmas stories, sang songs, and read the nativity story from the Bible.

Here, the kids were retelling the nativity story.

One of our Christmas traditions is sleeping in sleeping bags on the floor. The kids started it and won't let it go. Madeline was tickled to be old enough to be included.

On Christmas day, we woke up to gorgeous, sparkling snow. And carrots, apparently half-nibbled by reindeer, on the sidewalk. (Santa apologized for being in a hurry...)

Tortuous parents requiring their children to wait on the stairs for a picture. (I always hated that.)
The Radio Flyer Spring Horse was a hit with young and old.

Ryan and Emma were delighted to find that Santa left them wooden castles. They played with them for almost ten hours straight! They were so thrilled, they insisted on writing thank-you cards to Santa to tell him how much they loved their castles.
I have a little quirk. Well actually, I have lots of little quirks, but I'll just tell you about one today. Every night before I go to bed, I have the need to check on my kids. And that means actually going into their room, staring at them, listening to them breathe, sometimes feeling their back, head, or planting a kiss on a sleeping cheek. I'm not sure what this is, except for with my first baby, I was sure he would stop breathing at any moment, and so I have been doing it every single night since Ryan was born six and a half years ago. It has become kind of a fun event over the years, to walk in and find all sorts of crazy sleeping positions, books, stuffed animals, dolls, an entire brigade of Army men set up- you name it. On this night, I found a little princess tuckered out from all the excitement being watched over by 8 other princesses. Kids are so wonderful.