Christmas Eve

We headed over to the Nowlands on the 22nd.  I only got one picture before Christmas Eve, so most of these are just from Christmas Eve.  Anyway it was great to see everyone over there!  Jeremy's little brother and his wife just had the first baby right before Thanksgiving, so it was so fun to see baby Boston for the first time and talk to the new parents.  We also got to meet his sister's husband Tim, who we had never met before!  It was exciting.  (By the way Tim, we think you are fantastic!  So glad to have you in the family).

My one pre-Christmas Eve picture is from the 23rd when we went to the park.  Can I tell you awesome it is to go to the park in December?!?  It was lovely.

Christmas Eve was a fun-packed day.  That morning we took family pictures.  I didn't get any of the whole family, but here are some of the grandparents & grandkids and our family.

For lunch we enjoyed some crudités and then a sampling of root beers and cream sodas.

And the kids decorated sugar cookies:

And I held a very cute baby!!!

And we painted (yes, that's Eli underneath that pink apron)

And sang:

It was a lovely day.  That night we went back to my parents' for dinner and singing.  Since it was the first time in our marriage - for either family - that everyone was together for Christmas, we decided to split up Christmas Eve night and Christmas day.  We went over to the Astles for Christmas Eve evening, came back that night, and then spent Christmas with the Nowlands.

Handsome Jeremy as we drove over to my parents' house:

We enjoyed a delicious dinner at my parents' and then the singing began!  My family always sings a lot on Christmas Eve - and a lot of it is usually the Messiah.  This year, since everyone was going to be there, we all prepared solos and it was a pretty intense program!  We had 10 solos and 5 choruses.  We all took turns playing for each other and it was very fun!  (A little long, but fun!  haha).  We had to leave to get our kids to bed and set up Christmas, but I think they then sang some more non-Messiah Christmas music after we left. 

Kid table.  Goofballs!

Adult table:

 Kids singing a few primary songs.  I didn't get any pictures of the rest of the singing!  Oops.

It was a fun night!