Christmas Eve and Christmas Day have always been such special days, but over the last few years, we've started some wonderful traditions with our family and friends. Christmas Eve started off with allowing the kids to open 1 gift each. We let them do it early in the day so they would have plenty of time to play all day. We were so glad that Mimi was at our house to celebrate Christmas! Kathryn got a Mickey Mouse coloring book and a bow and arrow set. Kendall got some slime supplies from Sam, and Sam got a real bow and arrow from daddy! They were all so excited to play with their toys! Luckily, the day was sunny and warm so we were glad to get to play outside with the bow!
We always love going to the Christmas Eve service at church. It's always a wonderful candlelight service. This year, we made sure to take a family picture after it was over!!
After the service, we headed over to the Beavers home for our annual "Framily Christmas Eve". We all enjoyed a wonderful dinner, followed by letting the kids decorate cookies, reading the real Christmas story, singing the 12 days of Christmas, our newest tradition, the "real-life" nativity scene, and caroling to the neighbors. We always have SO much fun with our friends!! We are thankful that God crossed our paths so many years ago!
We then came home and sprinkled the reindeer food in the driveway, set out the milk and cookies for Santa, and tried eagerly to make ourselves sleepy and get to bed before Santa arrived. We had some motion at the front door and when we looked at the doorbell camera, we saw Santa's hat!! The kids quickly went to bed so Santa didn't skip over our house!
At 7:00 AM, the commotion started when Santa arrived!! It was so much fun to see the gifts that Santa left all wrapped up! The kids were super excited to see their hover boards and Kat's light up scooter!
The Shafer's came over to visit for about 15 minutes and of course they got in on the slime-making!
Later that afternoon, the rest of the Stovall clan came over for dinner, games, and fun! We all held our sweet baby Ady Rae! She's just like a little baby doll! We played lots of fun games, including Babble Battle. We laughed and laughed!! Laughter is so good for the soul! We are so thankful for this Christmas season with our family and friends. But most of all, we are thankful for the gift of eternal life from our Lord and Savior!
