Christmas Eve

Christmas Eve Eve, Thomas and I busily made Christmas cookies for Santa. Lets just say this is a much better morning activity for his mama, as my idea of making cookies and his seemed to clash a bit.  After taking a breath and starting over with a new sprinkle plan we were cookie making machines.  After all was said and done the cookies looked fantastic and tasted great too..we hope Santa likes them as much as we did!
Christmas Eve morning the kiddos and I started to prep food for dinner. While Elin napped Thomas was the big helper and we got the potatoes peeled and sliced. He was more than happy to help with his "sharp knife" or small butter knife.
Then it was time for some more playing and a surprise, Mike was able to get out of the office a little early.  He had used up most of his vacation over our week back in Minnesota, so he had to go in on Christmas Eve, boo.  At least he was able to get home early and have lunch with us.  After lunch, we took a family trip to the baseball fields to get some energy out, and get a little vitamin D, in one of the few “sun breaks” we get in Seattle.  Thomas is getting quite good at hitting the ball, or his Dad is getting good at pitching, either way it is fun to watch.  He will hit the ball and then happily run the bases,  to the pitchers mound or dug out yelling home run.   On this particular video, Stella even joins in the fun. 

Then it was home for more food prep and getting ourselves ready for Christmas Eve Mass.  After Elin got on her Mrs. Claus dress I couldn’t resist taking pictures of her adorableness.  She has just loved having the Christmas tree to play with and try to eat, so it was the perfect set up. Max and Amy arrived just before we left to take over the cooking detail and we were out the door.  Mass was good, Elin sang along the whole time and Thomas did his best to follow along.  After mass we got home and were greeted by our dinner guests.  We were joined by Max, Amy, Jenny and Jaime for our festivus.  As with most things, at our house, dinner was behind schedule.  We all collectively took turns cooking ,visiting, playing and occupying the kids.

Dinner and the company were both wonderful.  After great conversation and cleaning up we were in full melt down bedtime mode.  Thomas had skipped a nap and was having a rough time, over well, over the fact that he wanted to tell us that he wanted pumpkin pie before bed. After a full piece of pie, he wrote his letter to Santa and set out the cookies before heading to bed.  Mike and I then got everything ready for Santa’s arrival.