Christmas Eve

Christmas Eve and Christmas were my holiday to work this year, and that had everyone especially me pretty bummed. We had planned around it but when the NICU wasn't busy and I got to be on call on Christmas Eve, I was very excited! I still took a nap in the afternoon because it is inevitable that you will get called in if you don't sleep at all but this meant I got to go to church with the family for Christmas Eve.

We opened gifts in the afternoon so that the kids would have all day to play. Emmy got a veterinarian cart to play vet with her animals. She also got Spirit, the horse, that ate pretend carrots, troll headphones, craft stuff and lots of other little things.

Bryce and Caleb both got Chromebook computers this year. They use these at school to do all their homework on and take tests on so it will be nice that they will have them at home to use now too. Bryce also got some basketball clothes and a new bag for basketball.

All the kids were very thoughtful with their gifts this year and we got fun stuff from everyone. They had made gifts at school and also used some of their own money at Target to purchase family gifts.

Caleb got a Chromebook like Bryce and he also got this football blocking sled that Robb had made. You can add weight and it will help him practice for football next year. He also got a remote control helicopter and a couple other things.

Abby probably got the coolest gift of all and the boys were in on it. She loves to craft and she has a ton of craft stuff but she doesn't have a good place to keep it all. Robb and I had been talking about what to do with this area of the storage room after I got it all cleaned out. Robb wanted a weight room but he doesn't lift weights and I wanted a craft room but lets be honest, when do I have time to craft. We decided that Abby would put that space to good use. Robb built a big L shaped desk and storage shelves and I spent time organizing the craft stuff she already had and buying some fun organizational things to make it cute. She was beyond excited and in love with it. Emmy was having a hard time being happy for her though because she wanted her own craft room.

I love this picture because it is a rare moment that Emmy will give any of the boys in our house a hug.

We went to the 6:00 service and it was wonderful as usual. Each year I hope that the kids will keep getting a little easier and easier to have in church but everyone was tired and Bryce all of the sudden had the runniest nose humanly possible and he made a huge deal about it. Caleb complained that he didn't feel good and he was correct. He ended up sick on Christmas Day. Abby was tired and had a headache and Emmy was her usual distracting self. 

We headed home and worked on getting everyone to bed. We set our special cookies for Santa, told our elves goodbye and read the Christmas story before we headed to bed.