Christmas Eve.

We had a very fun, relaxing Christmas doing all the best things and will continue doing them with our friends and family for the next week! I absolutely love Christmas break. 

I thought I would share a few memories from Christmas Eve in today's post. Christmas Eve is maybe more of a favorite for me than Christmas Day. I just love the anticipation, the prep, and getting to go to candle light service all dressed up. It's the best. 

Lilybug started out merry and bright in her outfit for the day. She loves that reindeer on her shirt and shows it to everyone she sees when she wears it.

The boys spent most of the morning coloring.

And I spent most of the morning food prepping! I was thankfully feeling much better post-stomach bug and busted out some ham and poppyseed rolls for lunch as well as frosting for our Santa sugar cookies for--with my Rockettes DVD playing in the background, duh!

The boys were big fans of the frosting-covered beaters.

My kitchen was looking like a hot mess, as it usually does when I make more than one thing at a time. I think I am the messiest cook I know! It's kind of lame since I am such a clean freak.

After lunch, Bryan took the boys to the park to run out some of their never-ending energy while I cleaned up. I was able to listen to my favorite Christmas songs in peace and got all weepy as I cleaned---there is just something about Christmas Eve that brings it out of me! ("Welcome to Our World" by Chris Rice and "Joseph's Lullaby" by Mercy Me are my main tear jerkers.) Once the boys returned we turned on some "fun" Christmas music and got busy decorating cookies.

All three kids were super into the whole process and it was so cute. Also relatively drama-free, which  was nice!

Parker and his sweet smirk showing off his almost-as-sweet train cookies.

Lily was mostly into touching/licking everything.

And Haysie was just so proud of himself and his decorating abilities. I just can't with that smile!

Don't our cookies look SO delicious? ;)

Later in the evening we got dressed and went to my very favorite part of Christmas: candle light service! Hayes was so excited to participate this year and hold his own candle. He did a great job except for the part where Lily leaned back over his candle and singed her hair. Yes. That happened. (But not Haysie's fault!) No real harm done on those pretty curls, by the way.

I always get choked up when I think about all the candles being lit around the world on Christmas Eve. Visual examples of what we are supposed to be in this world! I'm so corny right now!

During the last song, (which was a very upbeat version of "Joy to the World"), we got the BIG surprise of snow falling all around the auditorium! It was so cool and I was just as excited as the kids were. 

Here is a not so awesome shot of the snow magic:

And here is my cute little family who we managed to wrangle in for a decent photo.

After service was over, we headed to Uncle Julio's for dinner (can you tell this is our new favorite Mexican restaurant). It was delicious and full and happy and I've only got this horrible picture as proof:

We listened to the kids' FAVORITE Christmas songs (which also happen to be my least favorite!) on the way home---it's all Trans-Siberian Orchestra, and y'all, I can only take so much of it. 

After we got home, we got on our jammies and let the kids open the presents that they bought each other which they were all very excited about and provided a good hour of entertainment.

Hayes got Parker a Lego set, Parker got Lily a car seat for her baby doll, and Lily got Hayes a game.

We Facetimed the grandparents and then got our Santa supplies ready! The anticipation was a 150% by this point and I was already exhausted because of it!

Parker told me what to write for their Santa letter and I wrote it word for word and thought it was hilarious and so cute. This is exactly the way Parker talks and I love it. And him. And Christmas Eve.

We set out the cookies and milk, sprinkled our GLITTER reindeer food all over the sidewalk that we frequently walk on to go in the house (ahhhh), and then read "The Night Before Christmas."

We let the kids all sleep in Lily's room so I laid with them until everyone was out. I was so tired by this point and could have gone to sleep but I had big, important plans for the night, so I pulled myself aways from Hayes' warm cuddly little body and headed to the kitchen to make ALL THE THINGS.

I had fallen WAY behind on my cooking/baking plans from that dumb stomach bug, so I stayed up WAAAAAAY into the night watching Christmas movies (It's a Wonderful Life, White Christmas, and Love Actually) and cooking/cleaning/gift prepping. It wore me out but was also fun and totally worth it!

One of the things I made was this Christmas Star for breakfast on Christmas morning. I (thankfully) had already made the dough and let it rise pre-stomach bug, so all I had to do was add the jam and make the star shape. I thought it came out pretty cool! (It looks even better baked!)

I also made sausage and cheese balls for Christmas morning, puppy chow, my great-grandmother's chocolate pie and buttermilk pie. I fell like I made something else but I can't recall it right now, haha. (We also had leftover raspberry almond shortbread cookies from last week--my FAVE.)

Oh....and we helped Santa out. ;)

Bryan spent the night in the backyard putting together the kids big gift: a trampoline! It took him 6 hours to put together. He drank a lot of beer to cope.

The house all cleaned up and ready for some excited little kiddies:

Our scavenger hunt letter that lead to the big gift (aka the trampoline). This is a Roberts family tradition that Bryan really wanted to use for our family. I love it!

Santa was here!!!

More Christmas fun later.....

Our Week In Photos!

Well y'all, our very planned and highly anticipated Christmas Eve-Eve-Eve and Christmas Eve-Eve  activities were dashed by the STOMACH BUG who so rudely decided to visit our house this weekend (and take me out first!) I started feeling weird on Friday and by Saturday was down for the count. Hayes woke up sick last night, and then Bryan was out today. SO....Merry Christmas!!!! I'm sure my in-laws are thankful we decided to push our visit till next weekend!

I am very sad about this and have pretty much just been moping around and trying to figure out out how to fit everything in after the 3-day delay (with a horrible headache and no energy). I placed a GIANT Wal-Mart pick up order on Friday morning and now have a ton of food to cook and prep that I still don't have the stomach to look at! 

Also, Santa has yet to wrap a single gift. 

Maybe we will remember this Christmas in a funny way in a few years but right now that is not looking likely and I will continue to enjoy my pity party!

I AM, however, very thankful that the bug appears to be the 24-hour sort and am just praying we make it through the week without anyone else going down! 

As of right now, we are (hopefully) planning to do our usual Christmas Eve activities and then will reschedule our night of driving around to look at Christmas lights to Christmas day and then will go to the Gaylord on the 26th (which will be good because I'm sure the crowds won't be as bad!).....so fingers are crossed!

Anyways! This weekend has been less than ideal but we have had a very fun week prior to all of this sick-y drama.

Last Saturday, I took a random photo of our Christmas tree....

And then my Aunt Cindy (or "Cinnie", as Lily says) came over to babysit the kiddos so me and Bryan could go to his work Christmas Party. The kids loved getting to open their presents from Cindy and I'm fairly sure did a GREAT job of wearing her out by the end of the night!

I don't have any photo evidence of our work-party-date, but we did get to dress up all fancy and drive all by ourselves to eat at Rodizio's (which was SO cool and delicious!). This was my first time to meet Bryan's colleagues and their wives and I was so impressed and am honestly super relieved that he has found such good, kind, and motivated people to work for. 

Hayes and Lily were randomly snuggling after church on Sunday (as they often do--two peas in a pod), and I was able to get a couple of photos....

I wore my new leather Spanx AND my "bear shawl" as I call it to church so I was obviously feeling very adventurous. My Spanx were a Christmas gift from my parents and I LOVE them and probably wear them way too often but I'm okay with it.

On Monday, Hayes had his Christmas program at school.

If I haven't mentioned my love for pre-school programs before then let me state: 

There are few things I love more than pre-school programs!!!

He did SO great!

Again with the bear shawl and another Christmas gift: new Anthro earrings!

We made a trip to the park at some point (I can't even tell you what day!)

We watched lots of Christmas movies! (And looked super cute while doing so!)

I did my usual favorite teacher gift: Stovetop Potpourri with a recipe card and a Target gift card attached. The plaid ribbon is a Marshall's find from a few months ago and is my favorite! 

I caught the kids all quietly coloring one night and just HAD to document that rare moment. 

You can see here what their usual reactions are when they catch me trying to take a picture... (Hayes: ignore, Parker: annoyed, Lily: "CHEESE!")

In very different news, I have been starting to re-brand my shop! I spent most of Thanksgiving break harassing my family on new business name ideas for my Etsy shop and a possible future accessory-retail-gift booth (!), and Maven Lane was the one that kept getting brought up and the one I kept going back to. The word "Maven" means "connoisseur" and while I CERTAINLY am not an expert at anything I am interested in or sell or whatever, I do have great interest all things pretty and creative and love constantly learning about them and want other people to love them, too!  I worked on the logo this week and have created new pages for everything---I just need to get the word out! 

On Thursday night we ordered pizza and then headed out to downtown McKinney for the Parade of Lights. We decided to ride the trolley into downtown since parking is so limited and  we were not disappointed one bit!

Look how cute!!

The boys loved it!

We somehow got lucky and ended up right next to the grandstand so we were able to hear the emcees announce all of the parade participants. 

This float had a train that blew real steam and was the boys favorite for obvious reasons. 

I have a thing for Christmas parades because I used to twirl in them for "Miss Tanya's Twirlers" when I was growing up and now have such sweet memories. I am so glad we were able to take the kids to one this year!

On Friday morning (while I was ordering ALL my groceries), Bryan took Hayes up to "the big school" for Parker's Christmas party. I asked him to take GOOD photos (like very adamantly!), and this is what he came home with....

HAHAHA. I tried! 

(I did hear "super fun" party reports from both Parker and Hayes, though!)

On Friday night we watched "The Santa Clause 2" and decorated the kids Christmas tree. They were SO excited and it reminded me that I should probably let them be more involved in Christmas decorating around the house. (This is a hard one for me!)

 Parker and Haysie made the star because I've seemed to misplaced our official one. Isn't it so cute?

Oh! Parker also made a "tree decorating timeline" complete with illustrations. 

He is for sure my kid.

And then we all got sick!!!!!!

Haha! Yes, we all got sick, but tonight I mustered up some Christmas spirit and we did the "Find The Pickle" game, which is a cute little game where you hide a pickle ornament and then the first kid to find it gets to open the first gift of Christmas.

Hayes found our pickle and was so proud of himself and it was adorable. I was happy he found it as his last 24 hours have not been so fun (a.k.a filled with puke.)

We let all the kids open a gift, but Hayes, the pickle-finder, got to go first!

And that's that! It's almost Christmas!!!!