Twas the night before Christmas...

Christmas Eve started off like most Mondays- I cleaned my house.

Then Preston spent the afternoon in the kitchen cooking up some amazing scalloped potatoes (a recipe he invented himself, jazzed up with sage and thyme- delicious) and our breakfast casserole (courtesy of THE pioneer woman).  

We hit the road a little late to head to Grandma and Grandpa Pond's house....AND they were snowy...it was looking like a White Christmas!

We did the traditional events- ham dinner, the nativity, little jack horner, present exchange and the typical Christmas excitement chatter.   The highlight of my night was watching Stella in the nativity.  This girl LOVES babies and is SHY beyond belief most days.  I thought for sure she would get stage fright, but right on cue our little Mary headed into the center of the living room and snuggled her baby Jesus as tight as ever.  It was so sweet.  My boys performed well, too, of course, but I think Stella struck me most because of a wonderful lesson given by a friend at church on Sunday about Mary- her role in the scene- that she was visited by an angel that told her she would be the mother of the Son of God- that she pondered and prayed about it until she got confirmation that it was true.   What a wonderful woman!...and what a sweet little lady I have!  I hope she loves the divine role of motherhood one day!


After a late night at the Ponds we hustled home on snowy roads to do our typical Christmas Eve happenings- jammies, cookies, and playing Santa.

Too bad Santa procrastinated and had to assemble late into the night (or early into the morning is more like it!).  Good thing he's an engineer and the box that said "3 hours" only took 2!

Mrs. Claus did wait up for him though!