Christmas Eve

Christmas Eve was a busy yet relaxing family day!  First, we headed up to Crystal Springs to visit with precious Mamaw, Tim's grandmother, at the nursing home. Mamaw is one amazing woman, in such great health and spirits!

Happy girls!

We all had special Christmas Eve gifts to open -- new Christmas jammies!!!  Ellie and Abby's came with matching gowns for their dolls, too!

During the afternoon, we realized Abby had been quietly working on something by herself for quite a while.  When we checked on her, we discovered she had so sweetly wrapped up several gifts all by herself, one for each of us, and placed them under the tree.  She presented them to Ellie, Tim and me with great fanfare!  Inside were her most precious treasures -- her special pink night-night blanket for Mommy, a princess flashlight for Daddy, and more. ..  It was the most endearing thing ever!

Then it was time for lots of Christmas Eve prep!  Baking (and eating) cookies for Santa. . . painting toenails Christmas red. . .snuggling up to read books and the Christmas story in Abby's bed..

Ellie wrote Santa a nice note to leave with his cookies.    Santa left the note with us Christmas morning but it was covered with crumbs and chocolate smudges!  That silly Santa.

And we made sure to feed the reindeer their mix of oats, cereal and sparkles to help light the way!

Two very excited girls!!!  We love these sweet faces!
It was finally time for bed -- Ellie and Abby slept in Abby's bed so they could wake up together Christmas morning!

(a little pre-bedtime sillies!)