Christmas Part 2

So...we left off at Christmas "Eve", which was Dec 23rd around the Moseley household. hahaha... they'll never know the truth... =)
It was kind of nice to have a VERY laid-back Christmas around here, things were quiet and peaceful for the most part. It was fun that both Elise and Ainsley fully 'got' Christmas. They had fun watching the movies, we talked a lot about Santa AND Jesus, we did lots of little stuff as a family, and they went to bed GIDDY on Christmas Eve. Adam and I were up early on Christmas morning, sooo excited to celebrate with the kids. After making coffee, setting up the last of the gifts, making sure the casserole was ready for the oven, we had to WAKE UP the kids around 8am. Ha! that probably won't happen for too many years.
They came down, raided the living room, and it was a blast. They really had so much fun helping EACH OTHER open presents, explain gifts to each other, play together for a few minutes, etc... it wasn't the crazy free-for-all I'm-more-selfish-than-you-are kind of madhouse. They were actually fairly patient, loving, and joyful. yay. maybe we're doing SOMEthing right... probably not much, but I'll take any little morsel some days. =)

Elise loved her safety glasses for when she's helping Adam in the woodshop. She wore them around for probably an hour and really does love to build stuff down in the basement with Daddy. She's also showing off new lip gloss in each sweaty fist.

Ainsley was ecstatic about a new gymnastics leotard.
She put it on soon after opening it and it stayed on most of the morning, too. side note: it was about 20 degrees outside. =)

These two are little partners-in-crime. Good thing they're so cute, too...

After things wound down a little, Mommy and Daddy opened gifts, we read some books, and just hung out by the fire all morning.
It was a great, relaxing, fun Christmas! We left the next morning (actually December 25th) and drove to Folly Beach, SC to celebrate Christmas with the Martin side of the family...so, that'll be the next post.

Christmas Part 1

So, we 'cheated' this year and changed Christmas by a day... probably the last year we could ever do this...kids will be too smart by next year. We had planned on traveling on Christmas Day to visit my family at a beach house in South Carolina, so we made December 24th "Christmas Day" in the Moseley household and it was fun. It was like our own little secret and we had to sequester the kids for about 2 days beforehand, just so that a neighbor kid wouldn't say, "Hey, I can't wait until Christmas in 3 days..." and then our kids would be confused and wonder why Santa was coming to our house in 2 days instead...so, we planned crafts (the Snowmen from the last post), lots of baking, cooking, wrapping presents, watching Christmas movies, etc... it was adorable and fun and sweet and I loved every minute of it. well, the minutes that I wasn't screaming at a kid about one more spilled bottle of craft paint, another necessary trip to Kroger (really!?! How can one family go to Kroger THAT many times in a week!?! unreal...)... but, I still loved it. Enjoy some pictures...less than 2 months late. =)

They were all sweet and happy BEFORE the Gingerbread house construction began. It got a little cut-throat as we went on...

little-man Mitchell was very curious, but didn't want to sit still long enough to work on it WITH us...
...someone sampled LOTS and LOTS of icing.

They worked so hard on the house. it was precious!

We made lots of sugar cookies. =) the idea was to give them to neighbors, but I can't remember if we did that or not...ha!

GOOFY FACES!

Everyone 'ready' on Christmas Eve with the plate of treats for Santa and Elves!
We ran outside right before bedtime and sprinkled "Reindeer food" on the lawn...just so they would be nourished in the midst of their long night of work... =) and we did have to go back out on "Christmas" morning to see if the food had been eaten by Santa's hooved friends!