our christmas

i love christmas. ryan laughs because whenever the next holiday is approaching {or season, i suppose} i always declare that it is my favorite. but, really, i do love christmas. the decorations. the lights. the coziness of it. the excitement.

i love wrapping gifts,

and making things.

and {perhaps most of all} the yummy treats.

anyway, as busy as I am leading up to christmas, we try to make it feel as special as we can for our family. we want them to have great memories of this wonderful celebration and also learn how to give and host and do kind things for others.

on christmas eve, after a beautiful candlelight service {in which ethan held his own candle for the first time}, once the kids were in bed and asleep {finally at 10:00}, we finished wrapping up all the surprises and stuffing the stockings. our house looked so festive! except in this photo, the walls look mint green, which they are not.

on christmas morning, this little darling woke up at 5:45 {about 2 hours earlier than normal}. that was not pleasant. the older boys awoke at 8 to a house full of grandmas & grandpas just waiting for them to come down the stairs. after about 2 hours of opening stockings and enjoying a delightful breakfast, mason had had it. had a melt down over a candy cane {which he wanted instead of breakfast and got because 1. it was christmas and 2. because of two grandmas who would do anything to make this little one happy}. so following his episode, he went to bed and missed all of the gift opening extravaganza. therefore, we have no photos of mason’s third christmas.

the older boys really only wanted legos. but we got them a few other things. ethan tore through the packages with very little emotion about any of it until i realized that he was just waiting for a lego set.

sheer delight when they received what they wanted.

and they realized that the other gifts were lots of fun too.

this is getting long. sorry about that.

on christmas night we went to my in-laws for a few days to spend time with ryan’s brother & new wife. we had our second gingerbread house making contest …

jess’ igloo

ethan’s candyland. he pretty much just tried to get as much candy on his house as possible.

grandma nonna’s dilapidated house

my sweet gingerbread cottage

ryan’s skyscraper {complete with elevator, lobby, boardroom, office, bathroom and, of course, helicopter landing}.

eric’s tank

and brady’s little gingerbread masterpiece.

Christmas comes and goes so quickly, but it was wonderful and messy and i think the boys will remember this as a good one.