the days leading up to

I know I write this pretty much every time I blog, but you guys! The posts! They pile up so quickly and I can't seem to catch up. Just keep plugging away, I tell myself. So, here we go. All the stuff leading up to Christmas.

One of the things I really try to do in December is make homemade gingerbread houses. I never liked gingerbread houses until I realized that I could make my own from scratch instead of buying a kit. Then it became this delightfully drawn-out December tradition that feels sort of ceremonious and eventful to me. This year I quadrupled the batch so my little sisters and mom could join in and have a house, too.

I loved how all of the unassembled houses looked. So much potential in those cut-out cookies!

Using fruit roll-ups to mimic stained glass for windows is one of my favorite tricks.

This was a project that was mostly just for George and me. Pearl was a little too destructive and grabby this year, and she didn't mind just sitting close by and eating the candy instead :).

Here are a few shots of the final product. I especially love the Mini Charleston Chew bricks and the Tootsie Roll wood pile.

My little sister Rachel made this cute house and I loved how the Chocolate Frosted Mini-Wheats turned out on the roof. I never got a picture of my Mom's creation (and it was seriously awesome) because she finished a few days after us and never remembered to go back and take a picture. Blast.

One of the other fun things we did in December was go to the Christmas program for our school. George and Pearl both had darling little songs to sing and do actions to and I loved how completely unintimidated they both were up on that stage in front of everyone. Pearl was especially delightful because she was (by far) the littlest one up there and she owned it. Seriously cute.

See her there in the Mrs. Claus jammies (this was a Polar Express program so all the kids wore pajamas) totally working out those actions?

And I love this one of her doing the "he knows when you're a-WAKE!" part of the song. That was her specialty. And then a photo of me with my kids since we are all at EA together.

Here's George and his friends doing a little Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer.

They pretty much wore these jammies every night in December. 

Grandma and Grandpa were there to watch the kids, along with my parents and siblings (they just had to leave right after the program to soccer practices and YW so I didn't get any photos with them). So many people adore these two kids-- they are lucky little people.

We also visited with Santa a few times in December, and George really loved it. Pearl actually did really well with the whole thing considering how scary this experience could potentially be. She just kind of looked at him, slightly unsure, but totally go-with-the-flow. 

Let's skip right ahead to Christmas Eve, shall we?

On Christmas Eve morning we decided to have a breakfast with John's family instead of trying to run around to everyone's houses on Christmas Day (plus we were all leaving to The Beach together on Christmas, so we thought we should simplify the other festivities). 

George and Logan were pretty happy about spending the morning together.

Lisa prepared a most delicious spread of gourmet breakfast delicacies. No picture, but trust me. We were all happy, even if Topher ruined her crepes :). (They weren't ruined, by the way.)

The kids had a table all to themselves and especially enjoyed the Lil' Smokies.

I am not quite sure why (maybe just for fun? Or did we use coconut for something, Lis?) the boys got to try their hands at scraping out a coconut. George did it for about 37 seconds.

Logan did it for about 47 seconds. So Lisa stepped in and finished the job. Like she is known to do. Being productive is one of her many specialties.

Then it was time to open presents, yay! Pearl was seriously delighted by this stuffed penguin. I love her giant, joyful smile.

A few of the other gift highlights:

Baby Stockton was too little to be in on any of the action, so he gets his own little spot. Hi cute little baby! Have I mentioned that I want a newborn? A lot.

I seriously love his little sly smile in this first one. So dang cute.

We bid one side of the family farewell and headed over to another for the evening. We first made cookies for Santa (George was very insistent about that). Two kinds, in case Santa is picky.

Pearl was quite thrilled to lick the beater.

In the late afternoon we (brilliantly) decided to do our typical Christmas Eve night activities right then so we could get home a little earlier than normal to let our kids at least attempt a decent night of sleep. We opened our pajamas and the one present from the person who drew our name this year. George got the highly coveted opportunity to have my dad draw his name and was lead on a scavenger hunt around the house to the garage where he was surprised with a new car (a Power-Wheels Mini Cooper).

Pearl was just happy to be around and included in on all of the fun.

But she was not forgotten in the gift-getting, and Madeline thrilled her with a little shopping cart that she can push around by herself. She is obsessed with doing things that grown-ups do and gets so mad when I have to help her push the big grocery carts around at stores, so this was a seriously perfect present.

So perfect that she got a little impatient while Daddy was assembling it and started yelling in frustration.

She spent the next several hours with her shopping cart.

Later that night we had our annual Christmas Eve party with my Mom's family which is always one of my favorite things in the world (so favorite that I didn't even take my camera out once to take a photo). It was awesome though, promise.

Then we changed G&P into their new jammies and headed home to put them to bed.


Exhausted little ones went right to sleep and John and I were able to put the finishing touches on our presents before Santa came. John banished me to the living room for a little while so he could wrap his gifts for me, so I took a hundred pictures of the lights on our Christmas tree. There was nothing else to do :).

Santa came, oh yes he did.