We volunteered to host Christmas Eve in our home this year. Stacia helped me plan it and then sadly became horridly ill and was not able to come. But being the awesome person she is, she still sent over all the food we needed. Thank you Stacia! Thank you Taylor for going to the store and bringing it to us. We decided to do a taco bar this year. It was a little different but turned out great. I did all the meat in the crock pot. I LOVE the crock pot...greatest invention EVER! I didn't take a lot of pictures because I was a little off my game as I had my ear infections and I was holding a baby for most of the party. That is why most of these pictures are blurry. :) I need more practice.
After dinner we played some games with the kids. My wonderful friend Michelle Jones gave me these great ideas. The first was the balloon game where we tried to pop each others balloon that was tied to our ankles.
At first it looked like everyone was dancing.
Then Nick became competitive and helped Ben pop Kristen's balloon.
Kayla and Kristen helped sweet little Katelyn pop Kayla's balloon. Katelyn was smiling from ear to ear. Such a sweetheart!
Nash was running for his life, but Elli was on his trail! She finally caught up to him, stood and jumped on his balloon and nothing happened...can you tell he was a bit worried.
The next game, one person put on oven mittens and a santa hat and used spatulas to open a gift. While another person rolled dice to get doubles. It was fun even though Nash was pretty upset about not winning a candy bar. We need to work on that a bit.
Then we calmed down and prepared for the nativity pageant. When we first planned the party there was going to be 7 little boys, and 6 little girls. Plenty to do the nativity. Well we lost 5 little boys and 1 little girl before the production. We begged Adam Ockerman who is 12 to be our Joseph. The poor kid really had no choice and filled in nicely. I wouldn't say we got a smile out of him but he did it nicely. :) Amy O. was our beautiful Mary. Asa was to be the baby Jesus but he couldn't hold out so the only doll we had was curious George. Bella Long, Aubrey and Katelyn Brinton were beautiful angels. Alana Dowling and Easton Long played the roles of the sheep hilariously. Nash was the three wise men and shepherds combined. He was so excited about his role he wore his costume to greet everyone to the party. Riley read the story while the kids paraded in. It was cute as always.
We decided afterwards to actually watch the Christmas story on the projector so the kids would understand better what they just performed. They watched the movie pretty intently and when it was over Bella (5 years old) stands up and says "Well I really enjoyed that!" haha That made the whole night worth it.
We then enjoyed YUMMY dessert made by Kristen. It was a tres leche cake and it was to die for. I begged for the left overs and yes I ate them all myself!
We are so happy we could spend Christmas Eve with our "family" here in Pennsylvania. This is our 4th Christmas with the Ockerman's. My heart ached a bit when I took the above picture. I said "just think this is the last time you will ever have to endure a Willardson Christmas." everyone laughed but I wanted to cry. I love all these families and I feel very blessed that we got to have them in our lives. Thank you Ockerman, Dowling, Brinton and Long families! Smith family we missed you!
When it was time to send everyone home it was a sweet surprise to have snow on the ground. I love a white Christmas!
