Merry Christmas! 2015

Nathan and Charlotte have been SOOOOOO excited for Christmas this year! We certainly added to their excitement because we shopped early and got all of their presents right after Thanksgiving so they sat wrapped under the tree for pretty much all of December. It drove them crazy! It made us a little crazy too because we knew we did such a good job getting just what they wanted. We were all very excited. I have so many pictures!

Christmas Eve: We went to the candlelight service at church first and then came back to our house for a chili dinner provided by Mama and Papa. After dinner, we got to open our first round of presents to and from each other. Nathan and Charlotte got to open their presents from Mama and Papa and Jen. And we gave them their presents.

Here we are at dinner. Jen and Alexandra were here along with Grandmother, Mama and Papa, and Grandma.

Nathan and Charlotte were so energized from the night and getting to open presents, that I thought it would be hard to get them to go to bed. Nope! Nathan and Charlotte went outside to walk everyone out that night, and then they came running back in. They saw a flashing red light in the sky and were completely convinced it was Santa. They came running back inside and told me they had to brush their teeth and get in bed. I swear I didn't do a thing! They got their pajamas on, brushed their teeth, got in bed, and went to sleep within 30 minutes. It was a miracle! So I had lots of time to get things ready for the next day and set Santa's gifts out. Oh they also said a quick goodbye to Melf the Elf. It was kind of sad because they were really going to miss him. 

Christmas morning! 

Wayne and I had so much fun watching them. They were so happy about every single thing and kept thanking us over and over. We love that they don't just tear into a bunch of presents all at once. They like to open one at a time and play with it for a little while and then go to the next. It's so cute to see them do this. They like to make it last!

Around noon, everyone came back over for lunch. I made these baked ham and cheese sandwiches on Hawaiian bread rolls, and they are always a hit!After lunch, everyone went home for a little rest (I took a nap!) And then Carrie, Chris, and Pearce arrived! And everyone came back over for dinner and to do presents with them. 

Mama and Papa got us all a selfie stick so here are a couple of pictures using it. We are going to have fun with this!

The next day, we met Mom for lunch and then went to the mall for a while AND I got my new IPhone activated! We then went over to Mom and Dad's house to have a birthday celebration for Chris. That was an interesting night because we had really bad weather. In fact Dallas and the area north was under a tornado warning for most of the night. It turns out that 5 tornadoes touched down and one hit Garland pretty badly. Nathan is so scared of storms.We were watching a football game when the warning came on and all of our phone alarms went off. So we went into Mom and Dad's closet (Dad had actually just left to go pick up our food!) Nathan ended up getting so scared that he threw up. Then he sat with Wayne the rest of the night until the warning was gone. Poor little guy. Every day, Nathan looks out of the window to see if there is a blue sky. I dread the next thunderstorm! But other than that, we had a fun night. Pearce and Nathan and Charlotte always have fun together. They were all sad when the visit was over the next day. But they were also very happy that they still had a week left in their Christmas vacation! We got our decorations taken down, house cleaned up, errands done, and the four of us really relaxed for the rest of the break. They are already asking me what is the next holiday. When Wayne told them Valentine's Day, they asked me how many days they get off of school. So funny!