Christmas Festivities-2008

Christmas Eve
We didn't have any dinner plans this year and I really didn't want to cook and have the mess so we hopped in the van and just drove around without a plan. We were headed towards University pkwy where there are lots of restaurants when we passed Wingers and decided that's what we wanted. It's great for kids! So we flipped around and had a wonderful Christmas Eve dinner. Coming home to a clean house made it completely worth it! Apparently we weren't the only ones with the idea because we saw our neighbors there too.

After dinner we headed to Grandma and Grandpa Elies's house for some present opening for the kids.

Jayci got a cute little plastic doll set. It came with three small dolls that have snap-on plastic clothes. They also have a crib, bathtub, stroller, hats, and little accesories, but out of all that fun stuff the first thing Jayci noticed were the little cardboard binkies that were hooked to the box for decoration. Of course she had to try them out!

Jack got a tool set with a race car to build. After Dad and Grandpa helped him put it together once, they took it apart and he put the whole thing back together by himself, with just a few verbal instructions. There's the third generation of very mechanically-minded boys!
Grandma included a tote to put Jayci's dollies in. Jayci thought otherwise.

All in all we had a nice relaxing evening. The kids were in bed fairly early so Jess and I could enjoy our part in Christmas Eve. It was so fitting that it started to snow. We opened our front blinds and enjoyed the peaceful night. My parents even stopped by while out for their traditional Christmas eve walk to see what Santa left.

We made some midnight hot chocolate and fell asleep watching a Christmas movie.