Merry Christmas Eve!

Whew! It's been a busy day! I managed to get everything done that I had hoped to, with the exception of baking some peanut butter cookies and making some peanut butter fudge (weird, I know... serious peanut butter craving going on!). I'm happy to report that I was able to A) take a SHOWER today (woot!!) and B) leave the house for the first time in THREE days! So all in all, I'd call this a very successful Christmas Eve! And it was really important for me to get this post up before going to bed tonight. Usually I post (for the most part) for hubs' family since they all live far away and can't be with us as much as we'd all like (hopefully that will change very SOON!). But this year, I also have to post to keep MY family updated, even though they all live within 5 minutes from us! Since we're still in the time between Chase's Norwood and Glenn surgeries, we have to live in a bubble (our living room), which means no family gatherings for us... again, even though all of my family is getting together right down the road! So hopefully this way all of our family will feel like they were able to take part in our quiet little holiday celebration. :)

So we had a lot planned for the kids (and by "kids" I mean LO, since obviously Chase is too young to participate in the festivities). Ultimately we were able to accomplish most of the to do's: eat dinner, bake and decorate cookies for Santa, open ONE present (this is my family's tradition... the kids open ONE gift on Christmas Eve and it's always Christmas pajamas!), take pics of the kids together in their Christmas pj's, set out the milk and cookies for Santa, read a bedtime story and get in bed before Santa arrives! Whew!!

So here are some pics from our evening...

I have to admit these two bath pics are actually from a few nights ago, but I haven't shared any pictures of my little cutie in his baby tub, so here ya go! I love this first one because it shows some of his battle wounds... surgery scar over his precious little heart, chest tube scar, PICC line scars on his arm. He's been through so much in his short 8 weeks! He's one tough cookie!

This one's another favorite because he's smiling!!! He loves smiling! Smiling's his favorite!!

So back to our Christmas Eve pics. This one is VERY appropriate since we consider Chase to be our most important and precious and special Christmas gift of all! Thank you, Lord, for blessing us with this perfect baby boy!!! (And yes, his pants are hiked up almost to his arm pits because this is a 2-piece outfit and the t-shirt keeps riding up his back so I had to tuck the shirt into the pants and hike them up to keep his shirt in place.)

Here's LO posing with her TWO pairs (pair?) of Christmas pajamas... I let her choose which ones she wanted to wear to bed. Can you tell she was tired of me trying to get the "perfect shot?" If you ask hubs, he'd probably tell you she picked up and perfected that eye roll by watching me. :)

Here's our little man with his new pj's. "My 1st Christmas" is written on them. So cute!

Here's our little crazy girl workin' the Christmas bows.

Now it's time to work on those cookies for Santa! I finally got her to stop eating the candy decorating the cookies for a second and smile for the camera!
She was very meticulous in her cookie decorating...

Proof she wasn't just decorating the cookies...

Couldn't leave out Chase! This is what he was doing while LO decorated cookies. Can you tell he was hungry? On a related note, we weighed this little fatty last night and he was an even 10 pounds! Isn't that fantastic?! I guess that's what eating 7 ounces every 3-4 hours will do to a little baby! And yes, that means hubs and I bought a scale so we can track his weight/trends/etc. from home. We're also thinking of investing in a pulse oximeter to track his O2 sats... but I digress! Back to the pics!!

More of LO decorating cookies...

Hilarious! I put some candy red hots on her tray of decorations and she happened to eat one... She wasn't a fan! It was "too hot!"

Hmmm... maybe the frosting will taste better?

Hard at work!

Loved this close-up of my cutie!

The final product! Lots of yummy cookies for Santa! I had planned to use a (gasp!) bag of Betty Crocker Sugar Cookie Mix from my cabinet to make things quick and easy, but the bag expired back in September. Can you tell how often I "cheat" when I make cookies. Never. Anyway... I had to bust some out from scratch and decided to try a new recipe from Pillsbury (don't tell Betty!). Anyway, these No-Roll Sugar Cookies came out fantastic!!! I was a little concerned with the ingredients... who uses powdered sugar in a cookie recipe? And why does it call for butter AND oil? Weird. But they came out delish and are oh-so-soft and perfect! Truly these didn't even need to be frosted, but I had to keep things fun for LO. Oh, and we left out some chocolate milk for Santa, too, since Max & Ruby say he likes it better than "the regular kind."

We capped the evening by attempting a picture of both kids in their Christmas pj's. It didn't go well. Chase was still quite hungry so he wasn't the most cooperative. Oh, well! I think this pic came out just perfect!

We put Chase to bed and then LO got to have a very special treat! Her Gramma and Pa Pa found this awesome book at Hallmark. It's a storybook of "Twas the Night Before Christmas" BUT... they were able to record themselves reading the story to her! Isn't that awesome? She was so excited (once she realized it was Gramma and Pa Pa reading it, and not Santa!). What a beautiful memory this was for her! I can't wait to see how tomorrow morning goes down. We've got the video camera and tripod set up and ready to record all of the fun! It's so exciting for me that she's finally old enough to know what's going on! I love it!!

Merry Christmas Eve to all! I can't wait to share the fun that takes place tomorrow... Stay tuned!!!