Christmas Eve

Christmas Eve was on Friday and we hung around the house. We put whole cloves in fruit -- anyone else do this? We did it growing up...they smell so good!

The kids and I made peanut butter hershey kiss cookies for Santa. 

We got another standing rib roast from Butchers Market this year. It was so good last year we had to do it again. This one was almost 11 pounds. They season it for you and tie the bones back on. It's perfect and Dad loves cooking it. The meat is SO good. This year we cooked it for 45-50 minutes at 500 degrees then turned the oven off for 10 minutes per pound but it still wasn't at 125 degrees for medium rare. So we put it back in at 350 degrees for about another hour and got it to 125 degrees. 

We did a lot of chillin and playing outside while it cooked. 

Chopping wood. We had fires all week. We had a truck load of firewood delivered a couple of weeks ago and more than half of it is gone. We have had a fire almost every day! 


We had some friends and Kevin's family over for Christmas Eve dinner. It was so nice out so we were on the porch. 

Five excited children for Santa to come!


The chef!







We headed out after dinner to look for Rudolph's nose flashing in the sky and we found it when we were driving through a nearby neighborhood. So we rushed home and got in bed quickly before he arrived! My Dad pointing to it for Molly Anne. Grady has told me several times since we did this - "seein that flashin red light...it was so crazy!" Very magical!



Spreading their reindeer food that they both made in school!




My littlest loves so excited!



Picture with Achy before he left. Both kids have commented how much they already miss him!



Santa came!