Christmas Eve...

Our best friends, the Bounds family, are building a house and living with grandparents for a few months.  So...just to do something a little different, they decided to stay in a hotel Christmas Eve night...which meant, they invited us to spend Christmas Eve with them and go swimming in the indoor pool at the hotel.

We had lunch with them, went to see their new house, and then headed to the hotel to swim.  Super fun to get to swim even though it was freezing cold outside!

Sweet friends...Anna Lauren, Emmy, and Rileigh

Rileigh thought Cooper needed antlers so he could be a reindeer...

Got to love this hair do...

Elliot...by far, the sweetest and easiest kid I know!

The kid will stunt any chance she gets...

If you cannot tell, Cooper was super excited to be swimming...he has always LOVED the water!

Emmy doing a little stunting...

Best of Friends...

All he could say...again Daddy, again Daddy!

After a fun afternoon in the pool, we headed to church for the Christmas Eve service.  The children acted out the Christmas story. The girls chose to be angels...

Oh Anna Lauren...such an "angelic" one...

Anna Lauren looks like we are making her do this...she really was excited about being in the play/being an angel...I promise!

Sweet Cooper did not have a nap so he fell asleep after the first song...I was not complaining because he was going to be a handful had he been awake.  However, our friends sitting next to us got tickled because they could hear him snoring...bless his heart!

Cooper wanted us to take a picture by baby Jesus...so we did!  And yes, he had shoes, but they got covered in mud when we went to see Jeremy and Christy's new house.  And although I am usually prepared, I did not have another pair of shoes.

Cooper has been very into baby Jesus this Christmas season...not complaining...that is what he should be into, right?

On the way home from church, we picked up Sonic because the kids wanted to go straight home and open a few presents.  And we're not complaining...Sonic is one of our favorites!

SUPER excited sister bought him a gun...he has been wanting a gun really bad...all boy for sure!

Anna Lauren opening her present from Cooper...

Since Cooper broke her rainbow loom box with his golf clubs, he bought her a new one for Christmas.  Again, he is all boy!

A little happy from Daddy and Mommy...we got her cheer friends a "cheer" water bottle for Christmas so she was really hoping she got one too!

Tradition...we give the kids an ornament every Christmas Eve...I try to buy an ornament that reflects something of interest that year. Anna Lauren's class made a book of "what we want to be when we grow up", and she said an ice cream girl.  So...she got an ice cream ornament.

The little man likes any and all balls, but he got golf clubs for his birthday so I went with golf this year...he seemed to like it!

Another tradition...pajamas for Christmas Eve night...

In December, Anna Lauren's school has a store where they can buy presents for their parents, siblings, friends, etc.  She does such a good job picking something out and keeping it a secret...she got me a candle this year.

And Daddy got bungee chords for the second year in a row...

Anna Lauren and Matt went shopping, and she wanted to buy me a musical Christmas card.  Cooper loved the music!

And then it was time to sprinkle the reindeer food...don't laugh...we were all too lazy to go upstairs and get shoes so Anna Lauren has on my flip flops and Cooper has on my boots (on the wrong feet of course)...

These two don't even realize it...but...they have the BEST daddy!

And last but not least we put out just what Santa requested with hopes he would be stopping by...chocolate milk, a diet coke, chocolate chip cookies, and carrots for his reindeer.  He was very specific when we visited him!