Christmas Eve

Our tradition for the past few years has been to have my mom and Larry over for dinner on Christmas Eve. Then they spend the night with us so they can be here for Christmas morning with the girls. This year we had my little sister Layni here too while my dad and Leslie were in London.

Christmas Eve was a little hectic. I think we tried to cram too much into one night. We had a fancy ham dinner.

Then mom made gingerbread houses with the girls while I made cookies for Santa.

I think someone was sneaking Sarah some candy while making the houses... NANA!

Emily (Mary), Layni (the Angel) and Mom (Joseph) acted out the birth of Jesus while Larry narrated it. Unfortunately my mom forgot all her nativity costumes, so they had to improvise, but it was still cute. Don't you like the horse (ummm, I mean donkey) Mary rode in on??!

On Christmas Eve we get to open up 1 present--- matching Christmas pjs!

After that we took Layni and Emily out with us while we dropped off a Secret Santa gift. When we got home, we were rushing to get the girls to bed and guess who knocked on the door... Santa!!!! That's right, Santa showed up and told the girls to hurry up and get it back and he would come back with their presents. The girls were so happy and kept giggling while talking to Santa. They showed him their gingerbread houses and gave him cookies. They gave him a quick hug and ran off to bed! Sadly, Larry didn't get to see Santa since he had already gone to bed!

Then we got the house all ready for Christmas morning!

Christmas lights and SANTA!

The week of Christmas we went out to see a light show nearby. We thought we would just drive by and take a look, so we bundled the girls up in their pjs and went out. Little did we know that SANTA would be there! So we got the girls out... in their pjs... to see Santa.

The light show was really neat. They had about 150,000 lights and there was a 30 minute show of the lights dancing to the music. The girls loved it. Sarah was squealing at the lights, however she was screaming at Santa. She didn't want to go anywhere near him.

Nativity

Emily was in awe of our Nativity set this year when I put it out. I had to explain that she couldn't touch it because it was "special." Later I heard her over by the Nativity talking. Without looking, I said, "Emily you are not playing with the Nativity are you?" She said, "No I am just playing with my dolls because they are not special. Later I found this...

So for family night we made a nativity set that the girls could play with. Andy and Emily were very good workers!

I think its pretty cute and the girls, especially Sarah, have really enjoyed it!

UNC vs Presbyterian

Andy and I got some last minute tickets to the UNC vs Presbyterian game recently. It worked out great because we already had babysitting lined up for that night anyways. The best part was that we got a parking pass and entrance into the Rams Club reception before the game, as well as the tickets.

before the game, we checked out the UNC Basketball Museum. Andy had really been wanting to go there but it has always been closed when we have been in the area. The museum was really neat and we could have been in there all night checking everything out.

The reception before the game is held on the practice basketball court and had some AMAZING white chip chocolate cookies.

And to top it off.... we had some pretty good seats too!

Double Trouble!

ROY!

Parents/Grandparents Night

Last week was Parents/Granparents night at Emily's dance class. Nana took off early from work to be a part of the special night. We got to sit in the dance studio and watch the dance class. The girls loved the attention and we loved taking pictures!

Dancing with the scarves is definitely Emily's favorite!

She also enjoys her "princess" time in the spotlight!

They always end the dance class with the "Freeze Dance," but this time Nana got to join in with the dancing. Emily loved dancing with her Nana. Thanks for coming Nana!

And how can we forget... Daddy was there too!

Oh, and Sarah and I were there too.. of course!