When I think of Christmas Eve I always think of Hallie. I will never forget Christmas 2011. I had a brand new baby (Britt, obviously) and was up all night nursing her in Zach’s childhood bed at Mrs. Charlotte’s house. I was crying all night thinking about Hallie and Katie and just the amazing gift that Hallie was to us all. While I slept horribly and was pretty much a hot emotional hormonal mess the next day…it was the most meaningful Christmas Eve night I think I’ve ever had.
Other than that night in 2011, I have NEVER enjoyed my nights sleep at Mrs. Charlotte’s on Christmas Eve! I used to think it was b/c of the excitement for Christmas morning but I just think it’s something about that bed?!?! I was up pretty much all night so once it got close to 6ish I went ahead and got up and got ready for the day. One benefit of not sleeping is that I’m usually the most “fixed up” one on Christmas morning haha.
Rockin’ our matching pjs!
We got all the kids up and were SO glad that Colt and Payton were fever free and feeling much better. However, we knew they were MEGA contagious so we did our best to keep the kids all separated. While Kye had already been sick, he wasn’t ever diagnosed officially with the flu and I didn’t wanna risk it going around our house. It was so sad having to keep the cousins apart!!!
Waiting to see if Santa came!
Lined up in birth order ready to go!
This was Britt’s 3rd Christmas yet it was her first one walking (and first one where I didn’t nurse her that morning!)! Isn’t that crazy to think about?!?!
Now that Zach and I have two wild children to keep up with, we don’t take as many pictures or videos of Christmas morning. There are SO many people there and SO much going on we gotta just live for the moment and soak it in!!! Zach did take this video of the kids opening their stuff from Santa 🙂
Santa brings each kid three presents and wraps them in his special paper! We open those first 🙂
Britt is hilarious. Last year she was SO CRUNK about her Cozy Coupe. This year…it was her grocery cart!
Once all the Santa stuff is opened we open stockings!
Then we sit and the boys pass out the presents. Everyone likes to write funny tags to each other (which is neat b/c my family always did the same thing!) so those get read aloud and somewhat exaggerated usually too! Once the kids had a decent pile going we went ahead and let them open. We had 16 people there that morning!!! While I’m a big fan of taking turns, it’s just not possible. We all end up kinda getting with our own mini families to open the gifts. We have been letting the kids do all of theirs and then the adults take their time and open together later. However, I want my kids to understand the gift of giving so we did take a break in the kids opening to let them watch the adults open the gifts they bought for them. It worked out great!!! I hate I don’t get to see what Colt and Payton open but Mrs. Charlotte and Mr. Rusty kinda keep an eye on all the grandkids and enjoy them all at the same time 🙂 My little crew takes turns and did awesome being patient for each other (Britt was a bit of a struggle haha).
Big Boy watch!
With me being sick we wrapped several things together and had several gifts for both kids haha
Puppets!!!
Britt did not want to put the umbrella down she kept saying “raining on me!”
Zach bought Kye his first golf glove
This was the THEME of the morning with Kye! He’d been sick for well over a week at that point and was feeling better but KEPT picking his nose. It makes me laugh to see all the nose picking pictures haha! It’s a memory right? 🙂
Big Kid Lego Set!
Give this child a phone and she’s good to go!
When we took a break early on to let some of the adults open a few things it was “the time” for our announcement 🙂 We tried to be as sly as we could about it. I made sure the special present was wrapped in obvious paper that we’d be able to find and made sure to put it out near the front of the tree! We casually grabbed the present and said for Mr. Rusty and Mrs. Charlotte to go ahead and open that one 🙂 You can see the full moment here! (If you are watching it for the first time IGNORE my BOOTY! I didn’t know the camera was set up behind me!)
Kye watching them open the ornament!
Excited!!!!
After we made our announcement Mrs. Charlotte had Mr. Rusty go ahead and open a gift from her. We were pretty sure that Zach was going to make President’s Club (Aflac’s highest honor! Top 85 in the COUNTRY!) and the trip is going to be to IRELAND. Mr. Rusty and Zach have always wanted to go to Ireland together to go golfing. So for Mr. Rusty’s Christmas present Mrs. Charlotte made arrangements for him to fly out to Ireland and meet us there for a few days for some golf with his son! He was in SHOCK and it was so exciting! For sure a SUPER exciting morning 🙂
Waiting and watching patiently 🙂
Uncle Jordan’s influencing Kye with the baseball stuff…
More nose picking 🙂
My gift from the kids 🙂
Brad ALSO had a surprise up his sleeve for that morning!!! He got Courtney tickets to a basketball game in Tennessee to see some player she really likes. Yall know me and that I have NO idea about that kind of stuff but it was a big deal and she was super excited and surprised 🙂
Gift we got for Daddy…new football!
Sully was the favorite friend of the morning for Britt
I always get the boys matching ties!
Our last Christmas as a family of 4!
Once the kids had opened all of their gifts we set them up in Mrs. Charlotte and Mr Rusty’s room with breakfast and a movie to watch so the adults could all open and visit and take our time without distractions! They loved getting to watch one of their new movies!
Yes, we got Aflac pillow pals for our future Aflac Agent and Aflac Claims Rep 😉
Sick kids on the bed, well kids on the floor haha
For Branch we (we meaning I of course!) got a baby photo book and filled it with pictures of all the family for him! Britt has one and it really helped her learn everyone’s names 🙂
Mrs. Charlotte got the boys all laser tag sets!
Crunk over his big gift!
Love my tag from Casey and Jordan!
4 Generations picture with Mr. Rusty, Zach, Kye and Big Daddy
For ALL of the sickness we had going on it was SUCH an incredible morning! All the lying and scheming was well worth it to be able to surprise everyone with our news about baby #3! Plus with Courtney and Mr. Rusty’s big surprise gifts too…I think it was for sure one of the top Christmas morning’s yet! And next year we’ll be adding TWO new babies to the mix! Mr. Rusty better get on it about his plans to extend the house 😉 We need the space for sure!!!
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