Christmas Eve

Christmas Eve was a fun and busy day!

We started off the day with a trip to see the airplanes and space shuttle

at the Udvar-Hazy Center

of the National Air and Space Museum.

It's a perfect place to take toddlers on cold or rainy days

because there is plenty of room to run around

and because the museum's observation tower

is a SUPER fun place to watch planes

land at Dulles airport!

Matthew really enjoyed all the new sights and sounds -
and then he crashed!

Matthew looks so grown up in his new "big boy" car seat!

(Can you believe that he has already outgrown the infant carrier???)

(Oh - and kindly ignore the tantrum occuring to the right -

guess it was naptime!)

In the afternoon (after naps!),

we enjoyed a Christmas Eve service designed especially for kids

at our church.

And then we went home to decorate cupcakes

for our birthday party for Jesus!

I wish I had pictures of our yummy Christmas Eve meal!

We found some new recipes that I'll definitely use againIn all the hustle and bustle,

it was really hard to get a good picture of the entire family!

This is the closest we got -

while reading to the kids right before bedtime.

After the children were nestled all snug in their beds,

we participated in another time-honored Christmas Eve tradition...

TOY ASSEMBLY!

This years "some assembly required" toy

was a train table.

It took 4 grown-ups to get it all figured out.

But the results were pretty magnificent!

And then it was time to sleep!