December 24

Bryan and our daughter spent the morning at the Oregon Zoo.  She had earned a free pass in the summer reading program and we realized that it expired in a week so Bryan used his day off to have a daddy-daughter date.  The finished their date with Arby’s and a great time.

The boys and I stayed home and spent the morning watching Phineas and Ferb.  Then we walked to DQ for lunch. 

Before leaving the house for a few hours we let the kid open their Christmas Eve gift.  This gift always comes from Bryan’s mom.  She always sends new pajamas and a toy for each kid.  The youngest got an awesome top, Guess Who?, and pajama pants.  My daughter got an art kit and a nightgown.  The oldest also got an art kit (different, thank goodness – no confusion that way!) and pajama pants.

In the afternoon we went to my sister’s house for our Christmas Eve celebration.  We visited, ate good food and tried to keep the kid’s excitement under control.  After dinner, the kids played a few rounds of Christmas Bingo and earned a prize (a DQ gift card for the daughter, a LED lantern for the youngest and a Lego car for the oldest).

By the time we were done with that, it was almost eight o’clock and the kids were going crazy so we packed up and came home.  The kids got cookies out for Santa with a glass of milk and we read When Jesus Was Born in Bethlehem which is the bible story of Christ’s birth with beautiful illustrations by Joseph Brickey.

For the first time ever, the kids fell asleep with in minutes of getting into bed and we didn’t have to tell them to “Go to SLEEP!” once.  It was nice.  We did some food prep, got the gifts out and went to bed…just as excited as the kids for Christmas morning.