Christmas 2014.

We had such a good Christmas this year. Matt had the entire week off so there was plenty of family time just playing board games, baking cookies and listening to lots of Christmas music. On Christmas Eve we decorated our delicious sugar cookies. I was so proud of the kids this year who patiently decorated each one with a normal amount of sprinkles...as opposed to their usual "dump 4954739595 sprinkles on the cookie, table, floor, dog, and self." 

Later that day we got dressed and ready for Christmas Eve service at church. 

 After church Matthew and Joy spent some time playing with the kids before opening a few presents.

 We had a delicious lasagna dinner (our tradition) and let the kids stay up late before finally kicking everyone out so we could get ready for Santa. The kids each chose a cookie for him, 4 carrots for the 8 reindeer and Carter chose an entire red pepper for Rudolph...because his nose is red. Of course.  :)

 In the morning they were SO excited to run downstairs and see what Santa brought. Our tradition is to read Santa's letter (he always writes back to us!), open stockings and do our scratch tickets before my parents come over to open the presents under the tree.

 It was also our last day on our Advent tree. I started this last year and even though it's super DIY we all sort of love it. Each day has a Christmas themed activity to do throughout the month. The kids look forward to lifting up the days each morning to see what we'll do. Some are simple like listening to Christmas music, making cookies or doing a Christmas craft and others are more fun like giving a gift to others, Snowflake Lane and driving to look at lights. On Christmas Eve we read the Christmas story and then celebrated Jesus' birthday on Christmas day!

 Scratch tickets....$0. Ugh!  Luckily we won a whopping $18 later in the day when we got our tickets from Matt's parents. Yes!

 Cute kids in front of the tree.

 Annual family pj pic.

 Carter made me this adorable handprint plate at preschool. He even decorated the bag and made sure to tell me it was very fragile before I opened it. And I loved it!

 A very happy boy with his new Lego sets.

 And Lucy's big gift was her first big girl bike!

 I usually pride myself on delicious Christmas food. And I didn't disappoint with my cranberry bliss bars this year. But, we are still trying to find the perfect Christmas breakfast tradition. We all love french toast but hate the clean up on such a busy morning. So, I found a simple, yet delicious looking slow cooker french toast recipe on Pinterest that sounded perfect. Instead it was half burnt, half doughy and mostly just a mess. Which meant we had to scramble to come up with something else at the last minute. And I was super annoyed. Big Pinterest fail! Guess we'll still keep searching for that perfect Christmas breakfast recipe. Any ideas??

 Celebrating Christmas morning with Grandpa and Grandma Longhurst.

 After breakfast we got ready and headed up to the beach house to spend the rest of the day with Matt's family. They had such a beautiful tree.

 All of the annual family pics in front of the tree.

 And then it was present time! I think the kids "helped" open up every single gift this year, even if it didn't have their name on it.

We ended the day with a walk around the neighborhood, watching the Grinch Who Stole Christmas and a delicious prime rib dinner. Such a good time spent with family. Merry Christmas!