Merry Christmas!

We celebrated Christmas on the 23rd because Brandon had to leave the morning of the 24th. It was fine with us because the girls didn't know the difference, and it meant a lot to Brandon to watch the girls open their presents! It still seemed like Christmas because we did everything the same as we would have done on the real Christmas. The night of the 22nd we did our normal Christmas Eve traditions and got a knock at the door, Santa had left us all new Pajamas and we even heard him say "ho, ho, ho" at the door. Averie was so excited and all night she talked about how she heard "him". We put out our milk and cookies and went off to bed. My parents and brother spent the night and celebrated with us.

This was the first thing they opened and they did it together, but by the next present they had the hang of it and were tearing into them on their own!

Kaylie got some new snow boots and she wanted them on right away.

The top two things on Averie's Christmas list were... A pink horse and pet fish! We went with the fish, we had that bag over the top of them and she was so surprised when she pulled it off!

Of course she had to feed them right away.

Stockings

On the "real" Christmas Eve we went to spend it with my parents. It just wasn't the same without Brandon there with us. I had a hard time but tried to be really happy for the girls! That night we had our annual Christmas Eve party at my Grandma's house with all of our family. It was a lot of fun we played family feud and Christmas bingo. We also had a ton of great food! I love my family, every time we get together we have an amazing time! We got our Christmas Eve gift from Grandma and then it was time to go home.

Every year that I can remember my Dad helped us make special reindeer food which was a mixture of oats, red sprinkles and cheerios. Then we would sprinkle it out on the front lawn for the reindeer to eat while Santa was delivering our presents.

Averie and my dad, putting the reindeer food in the snow.

Averie loves horses, so she was dang excited to get this!

Little miss Kaylie got her stroller and bunny and was happy to let Averie open the rest of her presents!

We had two great Christmas's and are so blessed to have such amazing people in our lives. We really enjoyed watching Averie and Kaylie! They helped us remember and feel the true excitement and magic of Christmas that we often forget as we get older.