A holly jolly Christmas!

(You've been warned, this post will be MASSIVE!)

Henry, just thinking he can keep up with the big kids!

Love this stinker. Not walking yet, but I keep thinking, any day.

Here I go a caroling.

Jeff would not carol with me, so I hosted a girls caroling/cookie exchange party.

It was a blast, and super success.

We had a great time, great weather and enjoyed tasty cookies, bread pudding,

cheese ball and wassel.

We had some super neighbors (Thanks E family!!) who did a random Christmas Elf to our family. (like the 12 days of Christmas, but random)

They sent over these HUGE marshmallows and all the accessories to make very

large snow men.

Funniest thing. Lucy has never build a real snow man, so after we did our candy snow man,

she loudly proclaimed "lets take him outside".

I feel 100% responsible that she's never played in the snow. But, to my credit, there has not been any to play in.

My dear Lucy, until then, we'll just build our marshmallow men.

Chars showing off his snow man. He carried that thing around for hours.

The volunteer fire department of FairFax Co. gets engine #9, decks it with

Christmas lights, blaring christmas music AND santa (seen on top)

and makes its way around the streets, various nights in December.

If you think you'll miss it, thats not possible.

Sirens, music, and an occasional "ho, ho, ho" will draw you from your home!

This was by far the coolest christmas thing I've ever seen.

I ran out of the house, yelling and singing!

You can't help but let that little believer in you shine a bit this night.

Lucy still talks about santa on the fire truck, and pines for the candy cane given by his helpers!

And this is where it all begins.

The Ellis fam and us decided we needed to make gingerbread houses.

As we planned our Thursday evening, we decided to have mexican food for dinner.

Thus began the Christmas Eve Eve Mexican dinner tradition!

We enjoyed a fabulous mexican feast (all the while listening to Mexican Christmas songs)

and then the craziness began.

There was hardly a detail left out when it came to decorating the gingerbread houses!

Oh, papa Ellis, after his TRAGIC fire encounter,

(which resulted in an ER visit, and hospital stay)

filming the evening events.

This picture just makes me laugh!!!

Holly and i did work on our house for HOURS, but not nearly enough to have her fall asleep during the creation.

The kiddies hard at work. Well, actually,

my kiddies hard at work eating all the candy they

could muster.

Tada!!! It is not being done justice in this picture!

We called it the WV house. Complete with fire pit, yard train, santas sleigh, and christmas tree.

Check out this fire pit. Tell me it doesn't ROCK! Complete with chairs AND accent pillows.

(Don't tell me I didn't do anything with my design degree)

Holly was so kind to let her house turn into reck for the evening.

This place was amazing!

This is more sugar then I think I've eaten in my life time!

Fast forward to 20 hours later.

Christmas Eve dinner.

(How did we not just sleep over for the last 3 nights?)

Let the feast begin!

Designer salad, honey baked ham, funeral potatoes, orange rolls,

brussel sprouts, shrimp, cheese ball, apple pie, monkey bread....

tasty tasty tasty!

Just enjoying a little chuckel after stuffing ourselves from dinner.

Every good story has to have a bad character, right?

Or what exactly was our roll in these events?

Acting out the nativity.

Henry made a beautiful baby Jesus,

lucy really was a sweet angel,

and Chars played a pretty good wise man.

It was DARLING to see these kids do this!

I've waited all year long, and it was perfect.

The traditional Christmas Eve jammies.

And the children were nestled all snug in their beds, wearing the new Christmas jammies

And good morning!! Christmas 2010

Had we not told the kids it was Christmas, they would never have known.

We finally got things started around 8:30 or so.

By the looks of this picture (a yawn, not a yell)

you would have thought we woke the kids up before dawn to welcome Christmas.

Just making sure Henry is as cute of a girl as he is a boy.

Yep! Still a darling stinker.

Chars trying out the new bilibo.

Oh, yes, and eating a sucker, from Santa.

Pink always has suited Jeff very well.

Lucys probably lost 10 lbs in 2 days jumping on this tramp.

Chars hasn't yet got the thrill from it yet, but we'll give it some time.

I guess there is more then one way to enjoy a pull toy, eh Henry?

The partial disaster, but very manageable mess after Christmas.

It was a day filled with lots of happiness, gratitude, and of corse, missing family!

It was weird, having the whole day to ourselves, not rushing here and there, but just enjoying each other.

Family WAS missed, but fun was had.

Hope your Christmas was merry and bright.