Ni Hao Y'all

when east meets south

Christmas Eve in pictures

We had an early dinner and then headed to the 4:15 Christmas Eve service at our new church. Yes, we have found an awesome church, praise God!! We all thoroughly enjoyed the service, which, in and of itself is amazing since we had all the kiddos with us. Only Isabelle disrupted our worshipping mojo by mading a few unsuccessful escape attempts. But other than that, everyone was on their Christmas Eve best behavior.

We came home and started a fire while we opened our traditional Christmas Eve gift…. a new set of jammies. After a fast bath for the little ones, everyone was ready to get their cookie decorating groove on… I had actually thought ahead and made the sugar cookie dough, from scratch even, earlier in the day. (Yes, I am trying to get extra brownie points from Santa. I’ll let you know if it worked tomorrow.)

Due to the new jammie situation, we had to strip the girls down to their undies, to avoid a potential jammie catastrophe.

Here is Shepherd, showing off his new train jammies. He hasn’t expressed a preference for trains, but since Jude is so fond of them, we figured Shepherd will be soon, even if he isn’t yet.

And then there is Dalton, showing off those guns. He didn’t want to get colored sugar on his new duds either.

Jude, who wanted nothing to do with anything relating to cookies, enjoys hamming it up for the camera. He is very happy, due to one new pair of “Tona Twain” jammies. They are really just plain train jammies from Gymboree and look nothing like Thomas, but he doesn’t know that. And we’re not telling.

No new jammies here. Just one very happy momma lovin’ on her oldest baby.

Isabelle decided she needed to invade the clip drawer before delving into the decorating of the Christmas cookies. No other explanation for the silly face, though. That’s just how our girl rolls.

Asher, showing off his culinary masterpiece.

All decorated and ready to go…

and now ready to eat 🙂

My girls, all ready for nighty night. What? You noticed someone else?? A someone who isn’t even a girl?? That would be our new dog. Seamus (pronounced shay-muss… ask Chris about the name. I flatly refused when he wanted to name our last two sons Seamus, but I couldn’t refuse him this time… it’s just a dog for goodness sake. Right???). He happens to be the cutest, sweetest Boxer pup on the planet. And amazingly, he adores every child in this house. We’re keepin’ him.

Even our finicky boy Jude loves this dog. He says, “I love him. I love him too much.” It’s shaping up to be a very, very merry Christmas around here.

Wishing you much happiness during this special season in which we celebrate the birth of our Savior: the ultimate source of true joy. From our family to yours: Merry Christmas!!

Comments

  2. What a wonderful way to spend Christmas Eve! Everyone looked so happy and loved..even the dog!
    Wishing you all a very Blessed Christmas!

    Reply

  3. Merry Christmas and have a safe trip to CHINA!!!! I look forward to following your sister’s journey. MERRY CHRISTMAS

    Reply

  10. Merry Christmas! Love seeign your Christmas traditions and love the new puppy! How did you sneak that by us all here in blog land. He is a cutie!

    Reply

  11. what a perfect christmas eve!! and i am VERY partial to that name- a great poet… and if we ever have a boy… :O) (you never know you know)….

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  12. Hi Stefanie…In China…Lucky Duck!!!!

    Your new nephew is G-0-R-G-E-O-U-S.
    Your doing such a good job with your pictures. Andrea will always cherish what you are capturing for her and the family. So precious in deed.

    I love your new family memeber. I grew up with boxers, and now my parents just rescued one a couple of months ago. Then just yesterday they just rescued a Boston Terrier to keep the boxer(Sadie) company. Seamus (did I spell that right) is adorable. He will be such great dog for your family.

    Also, I make sugar cookies just like that. So Yummy, but I use Betty Crocker sugar cookie mix…lol. So easy and so good.

    Can’t wait to see what adventure you and Cole and Andrea will find.

    Reply

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