a HILL of a good time.........: Christmas Eve // 2012

The night before Christmas eve (which is actually Christmas morning for our little crew, until Chaz figures it all out) we spent the evening wrapping presents and drinking a few cold ones. It has become kind of a tradition in our house.

We started the morning as we always do, Santa snow... ~~all over the freakin' house~~ which I really love because it brings such happy smiles to my children ~~and is amazingly difficult to clean up.~~

As we do every year, as the last ornery thing of Pingle (or Elf on the Shelf), we use painters tape to tape the boys into their rooms.

The snow leads all the way to their beds. Chaz has made it very clear, if there is no snow in their bed... Santa did not come in their room and check on them. It is a must!

Even the baby had snow in his bed!

Wrigs wasn't so sure what was going on.

I gotta say, the above is more how we went to bed.. not really sequential of how we woke up. I LOVE the story of how we woke up.... I didn't sleep well the night before.. Classic parent anxiety "what if they wake up and I don't hear them?!?!" "What if they get into all the presents and I miss it?!?! NO pictures, NO memories!! ARGH!!" I never thought about this one "What if the oldest wakes up, see the snow and follows it outside....to his 'Santa' present" Yep, true story. I was kind of restless sleeping, waiting to hear a voice or little footsteps, when I actually hear "MOMMMMMMMMMA, there is a TRAMPOLINE in our backyaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaard!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!" Ryan and I jumpped out of bed to make sure to capture this moment in time!

Who was out there?? Pingle!! Thank goodness we put him out there the night before, I had no clue that Chaz would actually go outside. I am pretty sure he crawled out the cat door. HA!!

Then he wanted to head back to his room to finish off the last day of his Lego advent calendar.. THIS was a BIG deal around our house this year. I highly recommend this for little kids who are infatuated with Legos.

Dane was immediately infatuated and in love with Pingle. I don't think he noticed him ONCE leading up to this day but this day, this day he was in LOVE!! He wouldn't let him go. Seriously, he had hold of him with a death grip!

Of course they went for the loot. I love that Chaz is super excited about the stockings. SOOO my kiddo!

Dane loved his wagon. LOVED!

A bottle, a wagon and Pingle. I don't think this is considered drinking and driving..

and if it is, he clearly doesn't care..

not one single bit!

Stocking loot is the best loot around!

Yep, scratch offs. My hubs is the best!

Chaos!

LEGOS!!! You will notice their aren't a ton of presents. Well... the big one is outside and the rest are Legos. Legos are down right expensive so our budget is met pretty stinkin' quick. It was a great morning for these two sweet little boys!

Plasma car, best toy ever! The Clawsons got one for Chaz quite a few years ago and once we decided Dane was big enough, we knew we needed two. This was a gift from the NC Hills (we drew names amongst the kiddos this year -- best decision EVER) We went ahead and let him open it Christmas Eve morning so we didn't have to haul it around. He was in love!!

After we put away the toys, got ready, ate lunch and did a few last minute errands, we headed to my parents house. Dane was in awe of the Christmas Clarkness outside my parent's house. My Dad has really turned into Clark Griswold. He says he does it for the kiddos but I think there is a little bit in it for him and mom as well. He does an amazing job!! The entire yard (which is huge!) is covered with lights, figures, music, etc.. It is amazing and I am just sick at myself that I didn't get a video of the "Clarkness"

A tradition every year is Christmas pjs. This year was a little tricky. The adult girls always match and the adult guys always match-- easy enough, huh? Sometimes not but this year THAT was the easy part. The hard part was the kiddos. I know, you would think THAT was the easy part. Not so much. They are technically in different "age brackets" on clothes and once Chaz made it in the big kids clothes we lost all the matchy-matchy items. I was none too happy. I found some cute ones for Dane and just bit the bullet and bought them. I had already decided the boys wouldn't match so I would at least make them cute. But then I had the challenge of trying to find something for Chaz... and let me tell you THIS was a challenge. I looked everywhere, literally.

A few days before Christmas I was still on the hunt for Christmas pjs. Notice: I didn't say the perfect Christmas pjs because at this point it was simply finding something that looked remotely like Christmas, or holiday, or winter.. just something, anything. I jumped online one evening (for the hundredth time in a matter of days) but this time, I got lucky!! I found one pair, seriously ONE pair, of Christmas PJs. They had them in his current size, meaning they would only fit him for a month or so but that is it. I didn't care, I was ordering them. They promised they would arrive by Christmas eve. I even took a screen shot and sent it to my momma-- bragging that I had FINALLY found something and they were stinkin' cute. Whew! Check!

Midday Christmas Eve, we headed to Mom and Dad's to start the Christmas festivities! I called mom that morning to 1) tell her about our fun morning and 2) check on said pjs. They had not yet arrived so I jumped online and tracked them--On track for delivery around 3pm. SA-WEEET!!! So we get there.. and we wait... and we wait....and we check online again....and again.... ugh. Mom finally (around 530) decides to call Fedex to check again. Once on the call we were all super confused as they told us several times that they had tried to deliver that day and nobody was home.. Ummmmm, no...someone was at the house ALL DAY! Well, after further investigation we discovered that my lovely habit for transposing numbers had struck again. When I ordered the pjs I switched two of the numbers in my parents address...Seriously. The Fedex lady told us there was no way to get these delivered today or pick them up somewhere. It was official, momma fail. I cried. I failed on one of my favorite traditions. Damn.

Mom was sweet enough to dig out some pjs she bought him as a regular gift and we decided those would be his "Christmas pjs" I mean, Santa rode on a rocket ship to space, right?? Ugh..

Funny enough, as all this drama was happening my hubs was returning from a quick trip over to his sister's house with Chaz and he ran to Pinnacle to see if maybe, just maybe they had some pjs. I told him not to waste his time because I had been in every store, five times. BUT he was successful. He managed to make it home with some of the cutest pjs ever. A+ hubs.

We had already put the rocket ship pjs in the bag so that is what Chaz opened (and wore) but I did feel better that we actually had Christmas pjs in possession.

Daddy has had a train track around the Christmas tree since Chaz was a little, little guy. I just love this picture. Dane and Papa memorized by the train. Dane ended up being a bit of a Godzilla with it, not very shocking.

The excitement was very well known and expressed. I think Dane just ran around yelling for a good 30 minutes.

And I did it again. I have no idea why I tried this again this year when I failed miserably last year. I actually thought to myself "Oh last year was a fluke, it was a bad kit, it was bad icing! Yeah, bad icing.. THAT must be it" But in the end, no matter how many excuses I made, it still ended up looking like a trailer park after a tornado hits.. with sprinkles. Ugh. Next year, I either hot glue them together like Chaz's brilliant teacher did or simply kill this tradition.. Donezo.

Papa decided we needed another tradition around this place. Papa and Chaz cookie baking for Santa. He was wise enough to make it attainable for the five year-old. Chaz tends to start and then bail on Papa so he decided to make the easy break-and-bake kind. Chaz was all about this!

The perfect rolling-in-a-ball technique. Chaz was studying each and everything Papa did.

He bailed on us mid bake, it does get kind of boring watching cookies bake and switching them in and out of the oven. BUT when it was time to shimmy them off the trays, he was in! And he was very clear that he wanted to be a master of the shimmy.

Then it was time for the excellent baker to deliver his cookies. He was literally permagrin.

and in his spaceship pjs, he delivered cookies to everyone in the house.

Even to the master-cookie-baker himself, while eating a cookie! HA!

Soon it was time to toss the reindeer treats into the yard. Although it is overexposed and out of focus, I love this picture! It was snowing just a little but the majority of this is the reindeer treats (oats and glitter) He was SO excited!!

Once the kiddos were to bed, it was time for one of my favorite traditions (man, we have a ton of traditions!) and probably the most hated by this man. Seriously, my brother loathes that I love this and he is "required" to participate. So every year.. we tell him "It is time" and then we get the moans, grumblings and groans. He is thrilled... everytime. Like somehow, someway this tradition will go away. Well, I have some news.. It is NEVER going away, ever. *insert evil little sister laugh*

But eventually he gives in, to please his sister, mother, girlfriend, father and brother in-law. Eventually... and with a smile, of course. Hahahaha! The tradition, you ask...Putting our old, decrepit, tattered ornaments from 40+ years on the tradition Christmas tree my father worked so hard to make perfect. Yep, all the junk (and I mean that in the most loving and sentimental way possible) LOVE this tradition.