the night when the horse tried to kiss max.

just when we thought she had worked through her santa fears,

we rode a sleigh through no snow to the north pole in midway,

and the horse tried to kiss max,

and santa tried to keep her on his lap.

fail.

i will never forget the look on max's face when that horse came in from her right side for a kiss.

FEAR OF DEATH

was on her face.

kind of like with santa,

but more caught off guard.

bahahahahaha.

the year brennan wrote santa 3x a day every day and they made each other's beds and picked up each other's toys.

never has a boy been so faithful in his santa letter writing.

i will always remember this as the year that he wrote santa 3x a day every day for two weeks straight.

really though.

it was a thing.

and i LOVED it.

please don't let this be the last year he does it.

i was in heaven with the magic of it all.

and also because my kids have never been better in their whole entire lives than they were on christmas eve day.

i asked, they did.

i didn't ask, they did it before i had to.

stuff for me.

stuff for each other.

it was amazing.

that is all.

P.S.

he also scribed letters for max.

it was so darling.

he's making a list

there are about 20 more lists 

as long or longer than this 

that he's written this year.

and we've also had about 5 million talks about how you don't ever get everything on your list,

and that santa gets to decide which ones he chooses to bring,

with any changes and modifications he sees fit.

i think it's safe to say he finally gets the christmas list thing!

"skylanders. i want skylanders." -brennan

"frozen notebooks." -max

"you have sucker?!" -chase

first year nobody cried.

christmas miracle:)

"HO HO HO" might be my favorite thing chase says right now.

that, and "what you doin mom?"

he says that all day long and i love it.

in the car, in a boat, on a house, in the dark, in a tree,

he is so very very cute you see!

i wish i could keep their sweet little baby voices in my house forever.

{BIG thanks to our financial advisor Travis Bowden with Collier, Webb, Bowden, and Associates for hosting Santa

and Marcell 360 Production photography for the pics! the tradition lives on!}

a house full of believers {EVE}

on christmas eve 

andrea had us all 

playing games.

really goofy ones.

the ones you can only play with your family.

like putting a peppermint joe-joe on your forehead,

and then trying to get it into your mouth without using your hands.

like you have to scoot it down over your eye,

by opening and closing your mouth in weird ways,

and then down onto your cheek,

sometimes shaking your head back and forth is a good method,

and then ever to slowly getting it into your mouth

without

letting

it

fall

onto

the

floor.

sean beat us all in about 2.5 seconds.

but he has an unfair advantage with his nose.

i guess technically it's not cheating when you're using what yo' mama gave ya.

most of us just dropped our cookie on the floor about a million times,

except for the super competitive folk

who did it over and over and over again.

just to show us how "easy" it really was.

all the while,

andrea and jaren's living room had about 20 of us with our faces to the ceiling

and cookie crumbs on our face,

you know

shaking our heads,

and opening and closing our mouths really big.

i don't think i've ever laughed so hard in my entire life.

after stuffing ourselves with clam dip,

meatballs,

martinellis,

joe-joes,

lemon bread,

rolls,

and everything else good you can think of.

other games:

marshmallow toss into the christmas wreath bowl.

candy cane bolt stacker

{only for the steady hand, sheesh}

tinsel limbo

and of course,

a thralling round of a white elephant gift exchange,

where i walked away with the greatest white elephant gift i've ever managed,

{except for the time when i had sean secure me the amazing mixing bowl and hand made apron--

but that was too classy to really be classified as a "white elephant."}

{marshmallow toss into the christmas wreath bowl.}

the greatest white elephant gift 

i've ever bargained 

and bartered for:

i branded it ours the minute the trading was over. tape too. phew.

then santa showed up to bring all of the kids some lollies and jammies

 

and we called it a night.

or least we ended part 1 of the night.

the part where the kids go to bed,

and santa's helpers begin the real work.

and then we read luke 2

and tucked them all snug into their beds.

there's nothing like having a house full of believers.

magic.

as those are my favorite kinds of santa photos

 2 kids still afraid of santa.

thank goodness!

cause no one like a boring santa photo.

1 of 2 warmed up by the end.

and i had to bribe brennan with 3 stickers for his sticker chart to wear a church shirt for the picture.

i'm still holding out hope that miss kim's photographer 

got one of them all looking at the camera at the same time.

{finger's crossed!}

preferably one with chase bawling his eyes out.

as those are my favorite kinds of santa photos.

i should have up'ed the ante and fought for the vest too.

rats!

...

P.S.

my favorite story of the entire day 

was a week later when brennan finally wrote santa a letter and told him about how he was sad

that mrs. claus broke her arm when she fell on some ice.

then he looked up and told me "so you have to be careful with her,

like you can't grab her arm or sit on her,

b/c i saw her, and this santa and mrs. claus 'are the real deal.' "

{note mrs. claus's poor arm covered in white fur. she really did fall the night before. 

man, i hope rudolph took the speed bumps extra slow on the way home.}

and now we wait.