twas the night before Christmas...

Tanner drew a cute little picture of him waving goodbye to the elf since he'd be leaving sometime on Christmas Eve to head back to the North Pole!

 We always make sugar cookies to take to Abu & Papa's house for all the cousins to decorate for Santa! I was so excited to pull out the cookie cutters because my Mom had given me some of her old vintage cookie cutters back in the summer and I've been dying to use them!

 Gritty!! Gritty!!!

A yummy colorful salad for our Christmas Eve dinner!

Family gathering. Playin' games. Eatin' dinner. 

 We had some awesome carolers come to the door with instruments and all!!! We invited them in and they sang us some songs!

 Decorating cookies for Santa Clause!!!

Marcus likes to get super creative with his decorating. He took two cookie shapes and turned them into something totally different. The Santa face above was really a snowman cookie and the elf face below was really an ornament cookie!!!

This is the plate we use every year for Santa's decorated sugar cookies on Christmas Eve. This year we made so many cookies we didn't have room to leave any carrots for the reindeer! :(

 All filled up and ready to take home and set by the fireplace with a big glass of milk!!!

 Katie's cute cookies!

Every year on our way home from Abu & Papa's house, the kids look out the windows to see if they can spot any flickering red light moving through the cold winter sky!! We saw something last year and this year too.. that we're pretty darn sure was rudolph and the other reindeer pulling the sleigh! They also can hardly wait to get inside and see if the elf has gone back to the North Pole!