Christmas

We sure had a very merry Christmas this year!  Honestly my favorite Christmas yet with the kids!  I always loved the excitement when they were younger but the excitement, anticipation and appreciation of the kids being a little older was icing on the cake!  They anticipated all our traditions and were beyond excited carrying out each one.  They tore into their presents but then sat admiring what they had received instead of tossing it to the side and grabbing the next!  They sat at the dinner table after eating and participated in our conversations.  Oh such a good Christmas it was!

So thankful to attend a church that had live Christmas Eve services!  

Our Christmas Eve always consists of a few fun minute to win it games!  

The kids also loved the Santa's beard game.  They had to fish out gum drops from the whip cream, which resulted in a whip cream Santa beard for each of them!

This is one of the few cousin pictures we have and its so stinkin cute!  Love these 5 with all my heart!

Mason, Jett and Ellis all got a dump truck that could pull up to 50 lbs.  Instead of being pulled, the boys all sat on their dump trucks and slowly rode them around the house all night long.  

After so many laps around the boys put on costumes to spice it up!

We always love singing happy birthday to Jesus after our evening of fun.  We never want the kids to lose sight of the real reason for celebrating Christmas!

The kids hooked up Santa with cookies and milk and left carrots and plenty of reindeer food scattered on the driveway and throughout the front yard for the reindeer!

The most priceless moment was Harper opening her Santa gift which happened to be a hoverboard.  She asked for years and we've always said she couldn't have a hoverboard because of safety issues.  We weren't ready for broken bones!  She finally gave up asking this year and asked for a ripstick instead.  When she opened her Santa gift and discovered the hoverboard she was in complete shock and had a smile from ear to ear!  She is definitely a BIG believer of Santa!!!

Mason wanted a 10+ person tent and Santa delivered!  We had a backyard campout the night after Christmas to test it out!  Love these kind of nights with the kids!  Games, giggles, snuggles and snacking until the wee hours!

The tent has a portioned off room on the backside which Mason instantly claimed.  He was so excited to have his own room for the first time since he was a baby!

We were all sad to see the Christmas season come to an end but we look forward to everything 2021 has in store for our family!

The Week Before Christmas!

We crammed a lot of fun into the week before Christmas, and really the entire month of December!  We carried on traditions and also introduced some new fun into the mix!  The Miller kids love their Christmas traditions and it sure does make my heart so happy to see their excitement when we do each tradition every year!  I can only hope these traditions continue on for years to come and then some are passed down!

After an evening of basketball we walked through Edmond's Illuminance lights

We ended that evening with our annual sleepover in the living room.  This is by far the favorite tradition for all 5 Millers!  We watched Christmas movies, ate popcorn/made smores, had a fire going and slept with the lights of the Christmas tree and mantle glistening all night long!  The best night with so many memories made!  This is a tradition Tyler and I started pre kids and we were so happy to start included them!

This cutie practiced lots of basketball in his Santa hat and reindeer antlers!  Mason sure does love everything about Christmas!

We had a last minute fun surprise for our neighborhood!  It was a Christmas laser light show to Christmas music!  So much fun and such a different activity for the holiday season!  It was like looking at Christmas lights and Christmas caroling all in one!

Harper and I have always enjoyed Christmas pedicures.  This year I asked the boys to join in on our fun!  This was their first pedicure and they are now hooked!

For the past three years we delivered Christmas meals to families in need on Christmas Eve Eve through the Dinner with Love program!  I was worried this wouldn't happen with Covid but so thankful it did!  There are more families in need than ever and we were more than happy to help!  After our deliveries we decided as a family to stop at McDonalds and buy additional dinners for the homeless.  It was an extremely cold and windy evening and we knew there were plenty of people that were in need of a HOT dinner!  We made our rounds and then went back to McDonalds for more.  It was heartbreaking to see so many homeless within our community.   We barely made a dent but we were happy to help as we could.  We left heartbroken but it was a good reminder for our kids, going into Christmas, how fortunate we are and that we can always help others!

After we had a warm pizza dinner of our own at our favorite place, Empire Slice!  Tripp, the kids North Pole Elf, joined our evening fun!