December 24, 2025-Merry Christmas Eve!

(click for today's pictures) 

• This Christmas eve morning was pretty quiet. Marley woke up once in the middle of the night, and then she woke up bright and early. Thankfully, she took a little cat nap in our bed before we all got up for the day.
• I started working on getting things ready for tonight and tomorrow. When Campbell woke up, she started baking her sourdough bread. She made some small ones and a large one, and they all seemed to turn out pretty good. We pretty much devoured the ones that she didn't give away. She gave two to friends, and one to Nonna and Pops and another one to Grannymom.
• Ethan came over, and he and Reagan made banana bread. Reagan isn't that adept in the kitchen, but thankfully Ethan is, and their banana bread turned out very good. Ethan opened his presents from Reagan and us, and he gave Reagan a necklace. 
• Robby was gone a good bit of the day-he picked up Grannymom and ran some errands. When he came home, we didn't have too long until it was time to leave for church. We took two cars and left fairly early to get seats.
• Thankfully, Grannymom had seats for us already since there were already quite a few people there. Reagan's social club had a 12 days of Christmas post, and Reagan was the today's featured E. On the post, she said that her favorite part of Christmas was singing Silent Night at the candlelight service. I would have to agree that part of the service is one of my favorite things about Christmas.
• Keaton and Whitman went to Nonna and Pops' house with Grannymom, and then Anderson and Graham headed that way with Reagan. Robby, Campbell, and I stayed at church a bit longer and chatted a while. Then Robby had to hurry home to pick up Marley...and since he got Marley and since it is Christmas, Bentley even got to come to Nonna's house. 
• Nonna and Pops had a spread of Christmas food. We ate as soon as Robby arrived. Everything was delicious, and then the kids opted to skip dessert to work on opening their Christmas gifts. This was/is the year of shoes-Anderson, Reagan, and I all opened shoes tonight (There will be 5 pairs of shoes opened tomorrow plus Campbell received some for her birthday). 
• I think that everyone was pleased with all of their things, and we were all certainly pleased with Nonna's chocolate chip cheesecake for dessert. Before we left, the kids made their traditional reindeer food. One of the kids told me that we still have to do reindeer food, so we did it.
• When we unloaded the car at home, I did make everyone take their pictures throwing reindeer food-Reagan and Anderson didn't make any, but they still had to take their picture outside.
• Next up was the Santa cookie picture-but actually, I don't think that the cookies made the picture. Anderson did cause quite a stir when he bit into one of the cookies after our picture. We then worked on putting everything from the evening away.
• I tried to get breakfast as ready as I can for tomorrow. Now, the blog is almost done, and I would really like to bring all of the presents downstairs and get everything ready for tomorrow, but I think that there are at least a few more hours before I do that.