Depending on my schedule and mood sometimes I really don’t have the desire to blog, but there are some events I will force myself to do so that when I’m 60 and my babies are traveling the world and can’t be home for Christmas I can read each one of them and then cry myself to sleep. Just kidding, kind of, let’s just hope if and when that happens CJ and are somewhere warm sipping margaritas.

This year along with the last few with having kids it has been us trying to iron out and establish what we want to make as our little family traditions and what works with our kids being so little. We always used to visit our families since we lived out of state, but now especially with two kiddos we are staying home for Christmas. What I’ve realized along with most things it’s a lot of give and take with the kids and it seemed like the food preparation and dishes was endless, but you can’t have a celebration without good food, am I right?!?

We went to church on Christmas Eve Eve and then we were able to just hang out and relax on Christmas Eve. We decorated Christmas cookies that day (the third time!) so we had some fresh ones for Santa and for ourselves of course. One of our traditions is doing fondue on Christmas Eve along with having each of the kids open their Christmas pajamas and a book. I got them non Christmas books and we read them before bed, but it just felt weird that they weren’t Christmas related so from now on I’m reading them a Christmas book.

I felt horrible on Christmas morning because any kid should be able to wake up extra early and see what Santa brought them, but that night Jonas wasn’t feeling well and was coughing up a storm and as a result hardly slept. So I told CJ to make Nola stay in her room until he woke up. Kind of terrible I know, but I wasn’t going to miss Nola seeing her gifts. And I wasn’t going to wake up a sick 11 month baby who finally was sleeping. Don’t feel too bad, he was up by 7:30 and all was well. And truth be told I still don’t think Nola fully got that once we got downstairs there was going to be presents, she just wanted to watch a movie, ha! It was a fun morning opening and playing with their new toys and eating yummy food. Later in the afternoon we went to my parents and I was pretty excited because Nola had no idea there was going to be more presents for her. Let’s just put it this way, Santa was put to shame by all the gifts she got later on. And to top it off they got to open some more the next day from CJ’s parents.

Though we all know gifts are far from the true meaning of Christmas it is my greatest hope we always teach and remind our kids what the true meaning of Christmas is. On Christmas I made a box cake and Nola decorated it and later that day we lit candles and sang ‘happy birthday to Jesus’. I am so thankful for the birth of Jesus!

Here’s some photos of our December and Christmas if you care to see: love getting out the little people nativity set out to help talk about christmas with the kids. this advent book by ann voskamp is also great to read leading up to christmas, however i think this is better suited for kids a little older.  this sums up my life currently with jonas. love that boy! nola was such a great helper decorating the tree this year!  love this sweet spot of ornaments! but lets be real here i eventually spread those babies out.  nola before her school christmas program highly recommend doing a hot chocolate bar during the holiday season! our christmas eve fondue tradition with sparkling grape juice
how it normally is taking a picture with these two…so ridiculous best one we could do!  the next morning jonas with his guitar…this kid loves music!! nola’s new playhouse!! i love this photo, nola and her goofy face and jonas feeling so proud he’s included with all the cousins my handsome men