Merry Christmas Eve Eve!

Earlier this week I told James that the day before Christmas Eve is called "Christmas Adam." It took him a minute before he realized what I meant and then he snorted and rolled his eyes. I feel like I'm just beginning a long stretch of snorts and rolled eyes at dumb jokes. HA!

We began our Christmas festivities this weekend and even though I haven't documented anything here in a long time, I felt like it was high time I pulled my chair up to my desk and sat down to write it out!

Our cousins came to town on Thursday to kick off the weekend. We hung with them on Thursday afternoon and had supper with them on Friday. On Friday night (which seems SO LONG AGO now because of how busy we were this weekend!) we headed to our neighbors' house for Christmas Caroling! Our neighborhood kids are all pretty little - I think the youngest is just over a year and the others are sprinkled between her and James. Most of them are in the 4-6 age range which really makes James and Will sad little puppies! HA! We get together a few times a year with them (we skipped out on Trick or Treating with them this year and went to another neighborhood with some of James' friends because he was suffering...gracious). One neighbor orchestrated the whole thing and we caroled at 4 neighbor homes (they knew ahead of time) and then came back for hot chocolate, snacks, and playing. It was such a fun time! 

Saturday morning the boys both had Upward basketball games. Will's little team is pretty inexperienced and most are either new players or are the younger ones in the group they're playing in (it's 2nd and 3rd graders and Will is a 2nd grader). We played a team that had a lot of really good athletes and lots of 3rd graders and I thought they'd get creamed! They didn't, though! They still lost, but not by nearly as many points as I expected! His coach seems VERY out of his element, but two dads stepped in last week to help at practice so I'm hoping they'll make steady improvements before the end of the season. One is even going to try to get together over Christmas for extra playing time!

James is on an AMAZING team this year. They've won 2 games and lost 1 game, but the coach is great and the kids are GOOD. This is his first time playing since 1st grade and it's a lot different from baseball, but he is loving it! I think he's going to improve a lot being on this team with these really great ball players. It's stretching him and forcing him to hustle a little more. (If you know James, you know he's a sloth.) 

After basketball, we went to a barbecue place with Papa and Yaya and the boys went to bowl with them while Eddie and I ran some errands and got ready for Christmas later.

Hasty Christmas was Saturday night at John and Kayla's house and it has become a MUCH MORE chaotic event in the past 5-10 years. Whoa. We now have James (10), Will (7.5), Merritt (4), Liam (almost 3), and Shepherd (1.5). It is LOUD and chaotic and never a boring event. We all had stimulus overload when we left! It was so nice this year, though! John and Kayla had Cracker Barrel cater part of the meal and the gifts were scaled back this year. Our children scored a weekend getaway with Papa and Yaya and some stocking stuffers. Eddie got a much-needed generator (for baseball AND hurricane power-loss). I SCORED big with my very own Little Free Library. It is PRECIOUS and I am so excited to get it up and running. I've wanted one for a while and asked for it on a whim a few months back. More on this in the future, I'm sure!

Sunday morning we had our annual breakfast at Cracker Barrel before Papa and Yaya headed home. 

Sunday afternoon we celebrated again over at Cacky's house! We had another amazing lunch and opened gifts! She is so generous to us each year!!! The boys wound up with a few gift cards and some cash to spend later. I was so tickled about Merritt's gift from us this year. We gave her a few months of Disney + because girlfriend loves to watch a movie, but then I also found Fisher Price's charcuterie board and I HAD to have it for her! She, Cacky, Anna, and I love to look at boards on Instagram and I thought she'd love having her own to play with. It was so cute!

Following all of that fun, I took a 3 hour nap. I napped so hard that when I woke up I was groggy! Oof!

Today the boys and I are picking up, watching {too much} TV and iPad, playing board games, and getting ready to head to a movie later today. Eddie has tomorrow off for Christmas Eve and our standard tradition is to go to the early Christmas Eve service and then over to Cacky's for a snacky supper. And then we will all come home, take melatonin, and try to close our eyes so that Santa can come!