visions of sugar plums

On Christmas Eve, we drove home from Ponca City and had lots of fun stuff planned before bedtime! Papa and Noni came back to our house with us to spend the night and enjoy Christmas with our family. We were happy to have them! Christmas Eve afternoon, we baked and decorated some yummy Christmas cookies! We baked enough to leave cookies out for Santa and had plenty left over to enjoy ourselves! Mmmmm! We used different colored frostings to decorate our cookies and to sweeten them up we used sprinkles and M&M's!

Noni and Papa were BIG helpers in the cookie decorating! I know the boys loved having them there!

 

 

After the hundredth, or so, time of Ash getting frosting on his fingers and licking it off...we began to think it was no longer an "accident"! Ha!!

While we let our cookie frosting dry, Noni helped the boys set out the magic reindeer food that Maddox made at his school's Christmas party. Maddox had prepared his reindeer food by scooping dry oatmeal into a baggy and then spicing it up with some bright silver glitter. The magic food instructions said that we should sprinkle the food onto our front porch and the reindeer would first be attracted to the shiny glitter and then when they got to our porch they would stick around and eat their oats while Santa delivered his gifts! The boys were super excited to spread the reindeer oats on the porch...

Here Reindeer, Reindeer, Reindeer...!!!

Once our cookies were all dry, the boys chose their favorites and put them on a plate for Santa. I asked the boys what kind of milk Santa would want and they unanimously decided on CHOCOLATE!! The boys carried Santa's goodies to the Christmas tree and set them in plain sight. We didn't want Santa to miss the treat we made for him!

The boys were just a teeny bit "WIRED" when we tried to take their pictures with Santa's cookies and milk...it was really hard to get a picture of both of them smiling at the same time! Ha! I can't blame them though, they COULDN'T WAIT for Santa to come!!

For Christmas Eve dinner we did something a little different and fun this year! First, I made a "pizza pocket wreath" for us to munch on! I simply heated pizza pockets, arranged them on a tray in a circle and then cut out bulb and star shaped pieces of cheese to serve as wreath ornaments! It was simple, cute and oh so yummy!

To go with our pizza pocket wreath, I also bought a fruit tray, veggie tray and cheese-n-cracker tray! It was a finger food kind of night!

While we ate, we snuggled in our Christmas pajamas and watched a movie. It was so hard for the boys to sit still but thankfully the movie helped wind them down for bedtime and made for a great family memory!

After the movie, the boys hopped into bed with Noni and tried SO hard to go to sleep quickly so Santa would come. They giggled themselves to sleep and it was absolutely magical to listen to...

Santa certainly visited our house overnight!! He was SO good to my boys!! I can't wait for them to wake up so we can dig into all these gifts...!!!