Christmas Eve! 2010

Christmas Eve! A day of fun!  We bundled up the troops for some outside snow play.. the day before I was home with Cole and Cora who had conjunctivitis... yum I know!  So it was nice to get outside to clear all the pesky germs away! 

It is nice to be able to have three able bodies out in the snow this year! Caden is obsessed with snowballs, which means Cora also likes "snowballs" which usually amounts to about 3 snowflakes gathered up between her mittens!

 

This photo makes me laugh.. You may be able to guess the scenario.. Cole walks up to Cora, throws snow at her face and walks away chuckling while she is screaming.  Siblings.. gotta love 'em!

We then made tracks (literally!) to the backyard.. we remembered we had a dead pine which had started to fall, but got caught up in another tree.. with the weight of the upcoming snow storm and the winds, if the tree let go it would definitely land on our swing set.. and the reason we have this swing set is because a large branch fell through our old one... we wanted to avoid that if at all possible!

So Rob cut the tree down that the dead tree was hung up on, ironically that tree then got caught up in another tree!  After several more cuts and some whacking with the maul, we eventually got the dead tree to fall.. not on the swing set, and the other now dead tree to not fall, but be stuck in a position that was not leaning anywhere near the swing set... to be taken care of another day!

Cole plays in the snow almost identically to how he plays in the sand at the beach.. minus the wardrobe of course!  He just loves to sit down in the middle of it and make piles, mess them up, and make more piles.

In an effort to get a group picture, I had to settle with these!  That is the story of my life, hence the individual pictures on our Christmas card this year! 

Caught in the act....

... so he had some more!  Caden LOVES to eat snow.. it's kind of crazy.

Minor interlude, and a "quick" summary that shouldn't be left out because we WILL laugh some day!.. we had lunch, Cole complained his ear hurt, Dr's office was closed.. decided to do Tylenol and ear numbing drops to see if we could get by.  Cole asked to take a nap, which he never does anymore, but couldn't sleep due to his ear... Church at 4:00, started tubbing the kids at 3:00 (our first mistake!) Kids were the exact opposite of cooperative, needless to say Cole was still in the (now empty) tub at 3:30 not wanting to get out.  I might remind you our church is at least 20 minutes away!  Finally get everyone dressed (forcefully), Cole undresses himself entirely because he is still angry about not being in the tub.. dress him again with force strap him in the car, come back in to get the other two kids, go out.. Cole is siting in his seat with his sweater and socks OFF!  I was expecting UNH to be painted on his chest.. (sorry, we can't afford BU!).. Anyway!  Drive to church with Cole screaming the entire way that he wants a different shirt, he falls asleep 2 miles from church out of pure exhaustion.  Rob goes in to church with the other two, I sit in the car with half naked, drooling, snoring Cole since who knew what we would get if we woke him up!  We figured a quick nap he'd wake up happy and we'd join everyone at church.  He woke up mad that everyone else was gone, but still wanted a different shirt.. finally after many attempts at flipping his mood.. NORAD Santa tracker saved the day! (Thank you Smart Phones!)  I got his sweater on and socks, working on his shoes when I look up and see Rob walking towards the car.. church was over!  Oh great.  Just before they open the doors to get in the car Cole declares "I want to go into church".  And so we began another freak out which had us endure a car ride home with Cole screeching "I want to go to church!" (Never thought I'd here one of OUR kids say that!)  I almost asked if we could just please find a church on the way home with 5:00 mass!  From the back seat Caden yelled "I can't take this anymore!"  You couldn't help but laugh!

So instead of more church, we drove around looking at Christmas lights instead.  It took awhile, but eventually the screaming stopped.  By the time we got home all was back to normal, we had hot dogs and continued on with the normal Christmas Eve activities.. oh and in the midst of the first car screaming stint Cole did tell me that his ear didn't hurt anymore, the only bonus to the entire situation!

Sprinkling Reindeer Dust on the lawn so that Rudolph and his pals could find our house.

We came inside, tried to get a picture (notice Cole is wearing his sweater and socks?!)...

.. opened their Christmas Eve presents.. every year PJs :)

Tried getting another group picture....

... gave up and moved on to the next activity!!

.. Snacks for Santa and his reindeer!  A sampling of cookies, a carrot for each reindeer.. some milk, and of course some beer.. gotta bribe Santa for some extra sweet gifts :)

We read our story " 'Twas the night before Christmas" like we do every year.. then moved upstairs for "The Polar Express"

A very memorable Christmas Eve!