Christmas Eve

Once again we had an excellent Christmas Eve! We went to church at the giant church up the street - and despite a surprisingly depressing message, the music was very beautiful and Avery was very entertaining dancing like a maniac the whole time. After church we went to Mom and Dad's for presents and dinner.

First we had a little photo shoot - the girls had matching dresses (of course!) and we hadn't had their picture taken yet.

This pose was entirely Ella's idea:

After the pictures we opened the name presents - Ella could hardly contain her excitement. She wanted to open her presents and "help" everyone else with theirs too! But we take turns, so she had to wait. Poor girl!

Cory went first - Dad had his name and got him a gift card, a scarf and something else I can't remember. Which is why I really should do this closer in time to Christmas. Oops.

Cory had Ella's name - so she didn't have to wait long after all! She got some Dr. Seuss books and an awesome and very apropriate board game called Madeline in Paris. Which she loved!

Ella had Ama's name and she got her a walking foot for her sewing machine (for quilting) a quilting boook and a JoAnn's gift card. Which I happen to know has been spent on a large quantity of yarn!

Ama had Aaron - she got him the blu-ray set of The Pacific, to match The Band of Brothers that he already has and we have watched a million time.

Aaron had Matt and got him the traditional Christmas Eve video game (Aaron has Matt almost every year it seems and he always gets him a video game.)

Matt had my name - the most important name of all! I got fantastically perfect gifts including the new Rick Riordan book, a journal and a book called Vampire Knits which is all vampire themed knitting projects. I now have to significantly increase my efforts to become a competant knitter because it is full of cool stuff that I want to make!

I had Cheyenne and I got her the movie Taken (which is super awesome) and a french rolling pin. Which I am told is the good kind.

Cheyenne had Avery and got her a purple talking Puppy. Which Avery loves because it is a puppy, but not a real puppy. She doesn't like real puppies.

But she seemed to like this one fine!

Avery had Papa's name and FINALLY Ella found someone she could sweet talk into letting her "help" open the present. Papa got some coin collecting books which he has already put to good use I hear.

So that was the end of the name presents and we were all ready to move on the main event - dinner! We had prime rib, THE potatoes, corn and LEFSE! Hooray for lefse! It was all so delicious that I couldn't even enjoy Dad's World Famous Delicious Pumpkin Pie. Although I had some later and it was excellent. It was really nice to have a family dinner and a fun Christmas Eve!