Christmas Eve 2013

Our tradition for Christmas Eve is to spend the holiday with Andrew's family.  This year we were at Aunt Jill & Uncle Eric's house with the kids and Grandma Mamie.

It was super awesome because as soon as we got there Claire and Nick wanted Mads and Nate to join them outside for some fun in the snow.  Since Jill & Eric live on a farm out in the middle of nowhere we were able to send the kids out and let them play til their hearts were content...  and I didn't have to stand out there and freeze my butt off!  (Did you know that I HATE to be cold?)  :)

Here are Mads and Nate snow suiting up to head out!

Fun in the snow!  Nate hitches a ride that is Nick-powered:

Mads gives a thumbs up before her ride down the hill:

Weeeee!

Total side note...  Google has this sweet new feature called "Auto Awesome."  They take your picture and add what can only be called "awesome" to it!!  Check out this same picture of Mads after it was Auto Awesome'd!!  

Anyway..  back to the fun at hand.

Nate found a shovel and was having a blast shoveling the snow from one spot to another:

Love these next two pictures of Claire in the background after she gave each of the kids a big push down the hill!

What a sweet big cousin!

More shoveling!

After the kids came inside they had some rosy cheeks!

Aunt Jill even made some hot chocolate with mini marshmallows for the kids!  Yum!

Did we mention that Christmas Eve is a big day for Nate?!!  It's his HALF BIRTHDAY!  

THREE AND A HALF!!

Before we ate supper we opened gifts.  Nate LOVED the candy...

Mads and Nate got gift certificates for swimming lessons at the YMCA from Grandma.  Here's Nate looking ever so thoughtfully into his envelope!

Mads read her note and then helped out Nate.

Sweet!  New DVDs!

And a watch for Miss Clock-Watcher!

We headed out from Aunt Jill & Uncle Eric's house around 7:30 and headed to Monroe.  We set out the cookies and milk for Santa as well as a carrot for each reindeer and a dish of water for them as well.

Then it was off to bed with visions of sugar plums dancing in our heads!  :)