Chirstmas Eve

We started the day by decorating our cookies for Santa. The kids had a blast from start to finish with these cookies. We baked them the day before, and Marcus loved slamming the cookie cutters into the dough, over and over, and everyone kept fighting over the snow man cutter, and no one wanted to use the bell cutter. When it came time for frosting, Alyssa was in charge of decorating the snow men,

and Ethan was in charge of decorating the Christmas trees.

Marcus just had a great time squeezing frosting all over everything.

And Ethan got a little too generous with the red sprinkles. (Yes, there is a cookie under that red mountain.) I used a spoon to distribute the sprinkles a little more evenly.

After decorating cookies we strated tracking Santa online. It was fun to see him get closer and closer to us, especially when it was bedtime and we were able to show the kids that he was getting closer, and they'd better go to sleep.

We baked homemade bread and cooked our Christmas ham, which Brian so lovingly picked up for us from Costco on his way home from work the day before. (You want me to go where? - two days before Christmas?!?) Apparently Costco was a little crowded.

And then we had Brian's family over for an early Christmas.

The boys had a fabulous time with the boat, I mean box that Grandma brought the presents in.

Then we opened the presents

and played and played and played. After everyone went home and we tucked the kids in bed, Brian and I kept checking to Santa's progress across the globe.

Apparently, he went through Spokane, Washington at 11:18, which was as close as he came to the Tri-Cities, and it was good enough for us.