Christmas Eve and Christmas Day

Christmas Eve morning was spent with Grammy and Granddaddy. Granddaddy played with the boys, while Grammy and I wrapped ALL of the Christmas presents. Honestly, I was overwhelmed at first, but we got all of the gifts wrapped before nap time and the boys had fun playing with Granddaddy, so it all worked out great.

After nap time, we went to church for the children's Christmas service. Evan liked it and was well behaved and Preston did pretty well too, considering he is 20 months old. Preston was eager to participate in all of the festivities, just not always at the right time!

After church, we went to the cemetery to place flowers on my grandparents' grave site. Although we place the flowers at my grandparents' grave, we remember ALL of our grandparents at this time.

We ordered Chinese food for dinner, which has become our Christmas Eve tradition and then ended the night with decorating cookies. Preston did not decorate much, but he sure did have fun eating all of the candy that was supposed to be for decorating the cookies! Evan had a ton of fun and decorated lots of cookies!

Carl and I did last minute Christmas preparations while watching "It's a Wonderful Life." It was our first time watching this movie and we loved it! Maybe this will be a new tradition for us!

Evan greeted us at 3:40 on Christmas day and informed us that Santa had visited us and left presents. Thankfully, he was willing to go back to sleep until morning and slept until 7:40. Of course, when he woke up the second time and realized it was really time to get up, he was pumped!

Evan loved all of his presents and was so happy to receive each one. He especially liked all of his Ninja Turtle gifts. Preston received an activity box, which kept him busy for about 30 minutes. After that, we were able to get him to open a few presents, but overall, he was not too interested in the presents. He wanted to eat, see what was going on and play with his old toys! He cracked us up!

Bonnie Mom. Grandpa, Aunt Rachel, Uncle Teddy, and Caroline came over for brunch and more presents. Aunt Rachel and Bonnie Mom made all of the food and it was DELICIOUS! Of course, after brunch we opened presents. Preston had fun sitting on the presents, but was not too interested in opening much of anything. Of course, Evan loved opening presents. Caroline liked all of her toys and really liked playing with Preston. The two of them had a ball together. I am hopeful that they will continue their friendship in the years to come.

We visited Jackson at the hospital in the afternoon. He was so happy we came and he was especially happy that Preston visited. He played video games with Uncle Carl for most of our visit, but also liked giving gifts and opening his gifts. Hopefully, Jackson will be cancer free next Christmas and we will all be able to celebrate together!

We ended our evening at Grammy and Granddaddy's house with Emily and Caleb. Of course, the kids insisted that we open presents first, so we did. Evan loved all of his gifts and once again, Preston did not care too much about opening his. Thankfully, Caleb helped him! =) We all enjoyed a rather rambunctious dinner, but I was not surprised. The kids tend to take over when they outnumber the adults!

It was a wonderful Christmas for everyone, even Jackson, who said it was his best Christmas ever. We are looking forward to leaving for Key West tomorrow and seeing Jackson at home, when we return.

I think he tried to put some candy on the cookies, but it was just too tempting to eat the candy!

Evan had fun decorating the cookies. He even made a plate of icing for Santa!

It's Santa's face on plate! He cracks us up!

Evan placed the cookies for Santa and he came to visit!

Preston found his activity box and payed with it FOREVER!

Evan is VERY familiar with opening presents, so he got right to it!

Meanwhile....Preston was STILL playing his activity cube!

Thankfully, we got him to play with a few toys, open a few gifts and eat some candy!

Of course, playing with the bows was still VERY interesting!

Playing with wrapping paper is fun too!

Caroline looked much more interested in presents, but she actually was not super interested either. She and Preston played with the toys that were already opened or that were old! So funny!

Playing on the box was he highlight of Preston's day!

We enjoyed our visit with Jackson. Sadly, Preston was done at this point of the visit and was not in the mood for a picture. Oh well!

Preston's favorite part of our celebration at Grammy and Granddaddy's house was dinner! Evan's favorite part was presents!

 

Cousins!

Christmas Fun

We have been able to do quite a few fun Christmas activities this season. We have visited Santa several times, gone to a few holiday parties, gone to Lights Under Louisville, made Christmas ornaments etc. It has been a pretty fun Christmas season and we have enjoyed spending time with our family and friends.

This was our first visit with Santa. Surprisingly, Preston was not scared of Santa at all and walked right up to him. He gave him high fives and some fist bumps and then started to explore the Santa area. Of course, you can't take your own pictures and the photography people were having all sorts of technical issues. This resulted in not getting any good pictures with Preston having a pleasant expression. This picture was taken after sitting in Santa's lap for over two minutes. Preston was not scared, but tired of sitting! =)

Prospect had a small Christmas celebration a couple of weeks ago. The weather was pretty yucky, so the parade was cancelled, but we still got to see Santa and get some balloons. Evan was really excited to see Santa and ran up to him and gave him a HUGE hug! Preston was pretty happy too and even pointed to Santa and said, "Santa!" This was pretty cool, since he had not ever said that word before.

Our country club hosted a breakfast with Santa this year and so we took the boys, Bonnie Mom, Grandpa, and Caroline. We had tons of fun playing and eating and we got to see Santa one more time!

Carl and I thought the food was just alright, but Preston LOVED it!

This is one of the only good pictures that we were able to get with Preston and Santa. I love it!

I was able to attend Evan's Christmas party at school and I was very grateful to be able to do so. He and his friends had made fun crafts during the first part of the day and ended the day watching The Polar Express and having LOTS of treats!

We thought we may have to skip Lights Under Louisville this year, but we managed to squeeze it in! Preston was excited to see the lights this year and of course, Evan always loves it! He sat in my lap during the ride and we had lots of fun seeing the lights and hearing the songs.

We had our annual Keeling Family Christmas party this weekend and it was loads of fun. It is always fun to get together with friends and family. Of course, we missed Heather, Jackson and Josh VERY much.