Christmas at the Bowles' Home

We have had a lovely Christmas. Yesterday we baked cookies for Santa, cleaned up the house, then had our traditional Christmas Eve chicken scampi dinner. It turned out so delicious and both kids at theirs all gone. Weston even had seconds! I love eating off my china and by candlelight. Both of the boys thought the candles were awesome too. We had to be vigilant about keeping Davin away from them.
After dinner we opened up our Christmas Eve presents. Everyone got new jammies except me. Poor planning on my part. The kids had a bath while I cleaned up dinner. Once everyone was in their festive Christmas jammies we sang Christmas songs, Ian read the Christmas story from Luke, then we read the kid version we have. We ended with singing Silent Night. My kids have been rather unpleasant the last few days, and Christmas Eve was no exception. It took a lot of threats to get Weston to sit still by me at the piano while we sang Silent Night. Sigh.

Neither of the boys took any kind of nap yesterday so they both went to be at 7:30pm. Ian and I curled up to watch "It's a Wonderful Life." Such a great movie. Finally we got ready for bed and pulled out all the Santa stuff. It's always fun to stuff stockings and put out the presents. Here's what the house looked like right before we went to bed. Santa came!
Weston had very strict instructions to come straight to our bedroom when he woke up, but alas when he came to wake us up (at 7:45!!!) the lights were on and he was telling me about the surprise (fire truck) that Santa had brought. I got Davin up and made them both wait on my bed while I brushed my teeth and hair and put in my contacts. Wow they were impatient. Finally it was time. They started with stockings and loved all their fun little presents. They kept getting distracted by the candy and the fire truck Playhut though. Luckily we were in no hurry.
After they finished stockings we took a family picture then started on the presents under the tree. Weston loved his Little Einstein's rocket toy and Davin did too. It was all I could do to lure him away from it to open his big present, which he also liked. But the biggest hit of the day were Buzz and Woody. I had originally gotten the set for Davin, but decided at the last minute to split them up and tell the kids to share. Davin opened Woody and Weston opened Buzz. Let me tell you, I will NEVER make that mistake again. Tomorrow we will be going out to buy another Buzz. There were many tears over that today.
Once we finally finished with presents, ate souffle and coffee cake, Skyped with family, and showered it was almost noon. We all went to go see "The Princess and The Frog." It was pretty cute. Nothing super special, but a fun one to take kids to. Davin lasted until about the last 15 minutes. Then I moved him to a row with no one in front of it so he could climb and move around. We didn't end up having to leave the theater! Hooray!

That was a good outing. We came home for naps and playtime. I made salmon, roasted potatoes, and spinach salad for Christmas dinner. It was delish and easy. I decided I was done trying to make ham and cheesy potatoes work for our Christmas dinner and this was a great alternative. We were all tired by the end of the day and I put the kids to bed a little early. Weston was really losing it and cried for 30 minutes before finally settling in and going to sleep. Sheesh. Christmas sure is fun, but hard!, with little kids. I am looking forward to some shut eye myself.

Merry Christmas!
Love, the Bowles' Family