Twas the night before Christmas

Merry Christmas! I hope you all enjoyed it as much as we did. I went out to my mom's house Friday morning for a dress fitting. Throughout the day everyone arrived - my sister and her family, EP (my Eric), and my brother. Our wedding invitations arrived about a week ago so I brought them with me to enlist some help addressing them.



That night we had two cooks busy in the kitchen. My mom was making a delicious ham dinner while my sister prepared a couple lasagnas to put in the fridge for the next night. The guys were a big help in keeping the girls entertained.



After dinner my sister had the awesome idea to play a game where we had to try and open a gift with oven mits on. It was pretty hilarious to watch and I think we got some good ideas to improve and make it more difficult next year.



Then my brother let us open a couple gifts early (he usually gets us a new game every year). We got two new games to try out that were both really fun. Pretty much any time the little girls were sleeping throughout the weekend, this is what we were doing.



The next day on Christmas Eve, we went ice skating. It was so much fun! We all had such a good time. I don't know why we haven't thought to do this more in previous years but hopefully we will in years to come.



My brother showed Eleanor the ropes again, but this year she was able to stand and skate (baby steps) by herself.





Jane didn't particularly like her skates on the ground, but seemed perfectly content to be in mom or dad's arms while they skated around.





My mom was the most daring with having just broken her arm not too long ago! Aside from my brother, she was skating laps around us. I can't say I wasn't a little nervous about her landing on that arm but it was great to see her having such a good time :)





Skating all by herself!



Sadly towards the end, my sister did walk away with a sprained wrist after trying to protect Jane during a fall. She had to spend some time in urgent care but hopefully it heals quickly! Like mother like daughter - these two injured the very same wrist within two months of each other.



Later the night, EP's parents came over for Christmas Eve dinner. Thankfully Katie had already prepared some amazing lasagnas prior to her injury. Everyone enjoyed dinner and just had fun hanging out and taking it easy that night.







Chris read the Night Before Christmas to the girls.



Katie got to work on some homemade cinnamon rolls for the next morning. So delicious!



And we did a lot of lounging by the fireplace and more game playing before we called it a semi-early night.



We wanted to be well-rested for an early, busy Christmas morning!