Christmas Eve

I love Christmas traditions!  When I think back on my childhood it is our family traditions that I remember most... a family drive on Christmas Eve to look at Christmas lights, opening stockings as a family on mom and dad’s bed early on Christmas morning, and the list could go on.  It is my hope that now our traditions will be the memories that will bring the holidays to life for our girls!

Every Christmas Eve for the past 6 years we have enjoyed Christmas Eve breakfast with our friends the Caldwells.  We always eat, spend time catching up, and exchanging gifts.  It is amazing to see how much this group has grown over the past few years.  When we first started this tradition Mackaylan was just an infant and Owen was a newborn.  Now we have 5 little kiddies under the age of 6 running all over the house and tearing into gifts!  It is always so much fun!

The rest of Christmas Eve is usually spent preparing for our Christmas Eve dinner with the rest of the O’Shields gang.  Usually we all go to the Christmas Eve service at church, but this year I stayed behind with Lydia because we didn’t think she would be able to sit through the service and communion. After church we enjoy dinner and opening lots. of. gifts. 

While the gifts are fun, the time spent with our family celebrating the birth of Christ is what makes this evening so meaningful!

And of course the night would not be complete with out our annual O’Shields photo (and a silly shot too!)

After a very long, but fun day these two little girls were worn out! It was time to head to bed so Santa could come and deliver some fun!!

Christmas 2011…. to be continued….

Christmas…. Round 1

How do you know Christmas is officially underway? I’ll give you 3 clues:

Lasagna

Dickensville

and Jahpa and Uncle Gene (Yes, they count as one clue because they go together… like peas and carrots, PB & J, Forrest and Jenny, you get the point!)

Anyway, we always kick off our Christmas celebrations on the 23rd of December at my Aunt Martha’s house.  It is always a fun time where conversations are plenty, laughter fills every room, and love abounds!

This year we started the night off by opening gifts.  Mackaylan and Lydia were spoiled rotten by all of the cousins and received lots of fun toys!  We only buy gifts for the kiddos and we are so happy that next year we will have another bundle of joy in our midst… Baby Bo!  We can’t wait!

 

The evening then included our traditional lasagna dinner, dessert, and “caffeine and conversation.” This is the time when the men and children are excused to the den and the women stay gathered around the table to chat, chew, and converse!

Here are a few more pics of our fun night together:

Here is the pic of the 3 Boyces…. Boyce M., Boyce “Gordon”, and Baby “Bo”yce!!!

Christmas 2011… to be continued….

Gingerbread House

This past week has been wonderful!  Mickey has been off this week too and we have cleaned, organized, and spent lots of quality time with our family.  I love having Christmas fall right in the middle of our 2 week break from school because it gives us lots of time to prepare and then lots of time to enjoy our new “toys” when it is all said and done.  Here are a few pics from the making of our gingerbread house this week.  We had a lot of fun even if we did put way too much icing! Oh well, I never claimed to be Martha Stewart!! 

As you can see, Lydia had a fun time supervising the construction of the house!  She sat in her highchair and nibbled away on lots of puffs and diced apples… her favorite food of choice these days! :)

And just for fun we set up the tripod to capture a few shots by the tree!  I think the blinking light and the flash on the camera were a shock to Lydia!  I’m sure it won’t be long until she is participating in the “silly shots” too!

Merry Christmas!!!!