Our Christmas Eve was not quite what we planned. Poor Elijah and “Reerah” came down with the flu! So no church for us. We spend a quiet day at home and did our best to start our planned new traditions and continue those we already had going.
One of the things I loved doing with Elijah was a little Christmas photo shoot with the tree in the background. As I have stated in previous posts it is sort of hard to coordinate even a simple photo shoot with three mobile kiddos. Christmas eve I had everyone dressed in Christmas PJ’s and thought I could at least get a few simple shots. They turned out pretty darn cute!
Patrick was looking jolly in a Santa suit!
Cute tiny boy looking so serious
I just love that little baby face!
Another one of my boys with lashes that would make any girl jealous.
Sweet soft smile. Love my P-funk.
This one cracks me up. “Sup bro”
Patrick got into a little mischief when I went up to get Rory.
My poor sick Elijah
My sweet Rory baby.
Hey Check out my cute teeth!
Such a cute little face.
Such a happy boy.
Rory starting clapping along as his Daddy played the bongos. This baby LOVES to clap!
I tried so hard to get a cute picture of my boys. Of course I think they always looks cute.
One of my only smiling Elijah pictures. Even here you can see he just doesn’t feel good. Poor baby.
Daddy creating some Christmas beats.
Rory wanted to join in.
Cuddling with my beloved “middle” child.
Last year I had really wanted to start the tradition of baking a birthday cake with Elijah for Jesus. But I was about 33+ weeks pregnant with the twins and just didn’t have the energy. This year, I was determined! SO the day before Christmas Eve (thankfully before Elijah started feeling sick) he and I baked a birthday cake for Jesus together and I iced it the next day. Since Elijah wasn’t feeling well, used canned icing and didn’t really get o take the time to decorate it like I hoped. The can of decorating icing was sort of hard to write with so the writing on the cake was not very pretty. But I am excited we started this tradition and Elijah really enjoyed it. I also had a little craft for Jesus’s Birthday part.
Mama told Elijah the story of Christmas with the help of stickers!
Elijah got to place the characters in the scene as I told the story.
Love that small hand that has grown so much these past two and a half years
Rory clapped. Next year he will get to participate in the craft and the birthday cake!
I hope to improve my cake decorating skills by next year!
Singing Happy Birthday to Jesus
After our Birthday party for Jesus, it was close to bedtime. Chip’s family has the tradition of Grandaddy reading the Christmas Story from the book of Luke before bed on Christmas Eve and so Chip carried on that tradition. A few years back, Chip’s mom gave us a copy of Twas the Night Before Christmas with her recorded reading it, as she has done with her family since 1982 when her college roommate gifted Chip with a copy of the story. We wanted to keep this tradition in our family and so we used the recording so that even though Grandmother (“Reerah”) could not be with us to read the story, her voice was there to carry on the tradition.
I really wanted to begin a new tradition myself this year. When I was growing up we went to Radio City Music Hall almost every year to see the Christmas Spectacular show. During the Living Nativity at the end of the show, the poem One Solitary Life was read. It always moved me and when I discovered a book with this poem in it I ordered it so that I could read this to our family on Christmas eve. Since things sort of fell apart with tired babies and sick little boys, I put that aside to begin next year but that is something I really am looking forward to doing.
Another thing I love to do is get photos of our décor every year. Even though most of it stays the same there are always little changes and additions and I think the kids will enjoy looking back at what our Christmas decorations looked like as they grew up!
I love having a decorated mantle. It is my favorite place to put photos and I love getting it decked out for Christmas! The three stockings on the left were made for Elijah, Chip and me by my Aunt Merrily. She is working on one for each of the twins!
Tree Number 1! This small tree is what we started using last year for our favorite ornaments since we had a toddler running around and a very pregnant Mama that was too tired to chase him. With two crawling babies we decided it would be a good idea to keep this going for another year.
Tree Number 2! A Jesse tree is something I learned about through some Catholic friends and I loved the idea. Every ornament is a piece of Jesus’s Lineage. We use Elijah’s Jesus Storybook Bible. I made the ornaments myself out of felt. I traced some patterns and some I came up with on my own. It was sort of our own little advent calendar and a great new tradition for our family!
My friend Rhonda told me about this tradition and we started doing it in our family two years ago. We buy a picture frame for every year and put a family picture from that year’s Christmas in it! I haven’t gotten this year’s yet. I find it is nice to get these things on clearance.
Tree Number 3! Our big tree! We usually have a real one but this year we borrowed one of the Senior Parish’s trees to save some bucks! And Look! Santa came!
Some décor facing Elijah’s playroom!
Elijah left a piece of Jesus’s birthday cake and some almond milk for Santa. Guess he really liked it!
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