Christmas Eve --"Can I just have one bite?"

This evening, I found this scene under our tree. Hailey had put one of the wisemen next to her baby Jesus she recieved from Nursery. :)

This morning I got up before Dave and spent all morning working on Dave's quilt to get the border on it (thanks to my mom and her amazing skills and willingness to help, we got it done!! :) YEA!!)My brother,E, called me asking if I had ideas for mom for Christmas, I told him and to which he quickly asked if I could go out and get her something---ON CHRISTMAS EVE! What is he thinking, he is such a man! So my Dad and I braved the crowds at Wal-Mart and went shopping for those last minute gifts. It was craziness at the store, I am glad that I was done shopping at that point. We rushed home to pick up the rest of the family and then get to Grandma's for Santa's visit. We barely made it (Santa had to get to the North Pole and was making a last minute stop) Hailey had a bit of stranger-danger sitting on his lap. She did tell him that she wanted princess stuff. And we woke up Preston for the picture, but we got it! (Check another event off the Advent Calendar.) It was another great Brown Family party, complete this year with a program. Grandma put me in charge of it this year--getting something offical organized and making it different from all the other get-togethers. I really enjoyed Heather--my SIL--sing and Tyler---my cousin. I have never really heard them do solos before and it is nice to hear just how good they are and allow then to shar their talent! Heather's song got me all teary eyed and then Tyler did Joseph's lullaby and I couldn't contain the tears, it was tender to hear about Christ from that perspective. Before the kids totally fell apart we went home and opened the Christmas pajamas (that tradition will never get old to me. I love new jammies! In fact this year Dave got underware since that is what he wears to bed!) Ryan and Heather helped Hailey put out her "reindeer food" we got it from our waitress at lunch and Hailey sprinkled it on the snow covred lawn.

We of course put out the obligitory cookie and milk for Santa and as we were putting it out Hailey asked if she could have just one bite of the cookie. Santa knew that she wanted some and saved her a piece of the cookie for the next morning! Oh, I love my girl!! Then it was off to bed waiting for Santa to come....Dave and I stayed up cleaning so we could fit all the new toys somewhere and to make it look good for pics the next day. I realized that my Aunt Carole, who was out of town for the holiday, had asked me to go over to their house and put out their stockings and disperse a few gifts. Also, that afternoon Dad and I had bought a tree for my Grandparents who didn't have a tree and it needed to be delivered TONIGHT. My wonderful husband graciously agreed to go with me and we went out at 11PM in the snow storm to get all this done. We had a key to Grandma's house and let ourselves in to put her tree up and leave her stockings. But she is a light sleeper and heard us come in, she called out from the back room "Hello?" We both got scared and ran! Then I felt guilty thinking that I had possibly given my dear Gradmother a heart attack on Christmas Eve! (come to find out later she heard us as soon as we put the key in the lock and realized it was someone who she knew that was there and wasn't worried, she thought it was Grandpa and got up to investigate, when she did she found the tree and the stockings, a pleasant surprise!)