Christmas Eve

We had a wonderful Christmas Eve night -- we've made it a tradition to go to the 5 o'clock service at church and then stay for dinner.  It's one of my favorite nights of the year and I love the time spent with our church family.

 Thomas in his suspender shorts.  I almost died from the sweetness.  Thankfully we had a super mild December and he was able to wear it.  

 A fairly rare picture of them smiling simultaneously.  

 and somehow we managed for Ellie not to burn the church down at candlelight.  She loved it this year!

Cookies for Santa

Ellie and I baked some cookies for Santa on Christmas Eve and I gave her the reins and let her decorate before we left for church Thursday night.  She actually did a decent job and didn't require too much supervision and handled most of it independently.  She was super proud of her cookies and Santa sure did enjoy them!

 There, in fact, WAS a cookie underneath all those sprinkles and icing!

 and she did her fair share of taste testing, too!