Christmas Eve

On December 23rd after playing at our house in Albuquerque for a little bit, we took our party up to White Rock. Neil and Rebecca’s family arrived in time for dinner. It was lots of fun to be all together at Sean’s parents house! We missed Eric and Natzz though =( Since we had 16 people in a three bedroom house, many people from the church said we could stay at their houses. Neil’s family stayed a few houses down. Brian and Jill stayed down the street. We were scheduled to stay at the same house as Brian and Jill, but I was really worried that we would have to take our kids down there to go to bed at 7 each night and that we wouldn’t be able to be part of any of the evening festivities. Brandon and Michal graciously gave up their room for us and moved in with their kids. It was a pretty good setup, although Brett had a hard time understanding why we didn’t come to bed at the same time as him =)

It was fun to see all three of the older cousins playing together:        

Brett and Brielle decorated cookies for Santa:

Lana learned to go backwards on this little horse:

Both Brett and Alana loved reading books with Mama Judy!

On Christmas Eve we spent lots of time relaxing, eating treats, and spending time playing with each other. Mama Judy (Michal’s mom) had to take off around lunch time after we had a little musical talent show. It was really fun to listen to so many beautiful Christmas songs. Sean and Brandon performed their famous duet of Go Tell it on a Mountain. Everyone had something to contribute. I think the most popular selection was when Mom P played Let it Go and everyone sang every word!

Neil and Rebecca made some yummy meatball and noodles for dinner. It was a super simple recipe of chili sauce, cranberry sauce, and frozen meatballs over egg noodles. We loved it!

Lexi insisted on putting the whole meatball in her mouth!

Brett loved getting to sit at the kids table. I don’t think anyone intended for this to be a kid table, but they claimed it and had so much fun sitting here:

After dinner we did a nativity play and program put together by Michal. Alana was the perfect baby Jesus and Brett was an amazing wise man.

After the nativity, the kids opened Christmas jammies and we went around to look at christmas lights and luminaries.

The kids went to sleep and Santa came =) Then Becks, Michal and I prepared some casseroles for morning, we played Dominion with Brian and Jill. Then we went to bed!