...and to all, a good night!

Merry Christmas to all! What a fun-filled, special day we had! I don't have too many posts from my personal life on here, but today was a day of celebration, and definitely worth telling about! The excitement for the holiday season started a month ago in our little town (which I often refer to as "Our Hope Floats".) The whole town shuts down anticipating the arrival of Santa Claus on a fire truck! The streets are all closed off, and all of the businesses shut their doors. Everyone gathers around the downtown gazebo, and as Santa exits the fire truck, he flips the switch for the Christmas lights! It was beautiful and so much fun for the kiddos!...

Fast forward to last night, Christmas Eve! We went to the magical service at our church, which this year was a candlelit AND glow-stick-lit service! (great idea for the kiddos, by the way!) Then we came home to start a new family tradition...Daddy made us chili! The boys each got to open one present that we got for them. Oh, and one of Santa's elves knocked on our door with an awesome surprise! He left the boys a package of new Christmas pajamas with a note telling the boys to hurry and get to sleep, so he could come deliver the toys! So, they changed clothes, put out the cookies for Santa, and put a plate of carrots on the front porch for the reindeer...

Ahhh! Christmas morning!!! Dayton and Grady were up at 3:30 a.m. Dayton quickly went back to sleep, and Grady was up until about 5:00 a.m. (oh my!) Then just one hour later at 6:00 a.m., all three boys were up and ready! Santa had come!!!...

These are my favorite pictures from growing up! (I was usually first coming down the stairs at our house!) I love the excitement on their faces! Well, as you can see Dayton, hiding behind David in this first picture, was really scared at first. He was afraid that Santa may still be in the gameroom! Too cute!...

Bikes!!! Dayton only wanted one thing this year...a new bike! He's had his training wheels off for a few months, and he really wanted a bigger bike. Well, Santa is smart enough to know that with twins, if you're going to get one of them a cool new bike, you probably should get the other one a new bike as well!...

Oh, no! The next two pictures are the most heart-breaking from the whole day! Little Brogan, who can't even pedal a tricycle, found out that neither of the bikes were for him. He kept saying "my bike," and when he realized that he didn't get one (who knew?!?), this is what happened...

Poor baby! On Grady's list was a Buzz Lightyear toy that he grew fond of while we were at Disney World. Yeah Santa!...

And Brogan (still crying from being tired, having a little cough, and getting over the bike-incident) wasn't fond of any of his toys...until we opened the presents that were in our stockings...PACIFIERS! We're so bad that we've been letting him have his way too much recently. And don't tell Dr. Reiger, but it made his whole day to find those two pacis that Santa brought him!...

After breakfast, we took the boys up to the High School so they had lots of room to ride their new bikes! It was so much fun!...

Loving this outfit on Grady, right?!! Dash from the Incredibles pajama top, white baseball pants, and candy cane striped socks...brilliant!...

After everyone took a 2-3 hour nap, we spent the evening with Mimi, Pop Pop, and Great Grandma & Grandpa. We came home to have our Happy Birthday Jesus cake! The boys loved singing and getting to each blow out a candle...(to all of my Martha Stewart friends, don't judge me on this cake...Dayton and I made it! ;) )

So, all in all, we had a wonderful day! We have so many things to be thankful for in our lives...God, our friends and family, our health, and the list goes on. We wish that everyone out there had a very Merry Christmas this year!!!!!!!!