Christmas.

This year we spent Christmas at my parents house in California. We deemed this the last official Christmas that we would all be together.

On Christmas Eve, we headed out to do our usual Christmas Eve stuff and then some.

We first headed to a neighborhood that gets together ever year to over-adorn their homes with Christmas lights and other decorations. We also found out that in two of these homes, live the creators of the all too famous "icicle lights". They came up with the idea way back in the day after attempting to create the same look with regular lights on their homes for this neighborhood decorating.

We opted to walk through. The line to drive through was outrageous. Plus it was like 60 degrees.

You can see the kind of attention they get every year. Luckily, they always put it to good use and have toys for tots donation spots. :)

We missed Jordan and Tawnie but since they were going to be spending Christmas day with us, they spent Christmas Eve with her family. We missed Kylee too. She was working her butt off at the Olive Garden.

After the lights we went up into the hills and found the usual night tree. My family decorates a tree out in nature every morning with birdseed and popcorn so when the animals wake up on Christmas morning, they have a little surprise waiting. While we are up there we take in the silence and ponder the true meaning of Christmas. We then each take our turns talking about things we're thankful for. It's always nice to get away from the "world's" Christmas.

We came home and got our Christmas pj's on. Put the boys to bed and waited for Christmas to come.

It came.

So many attempts at the kids on the stairs pictures.

The only two grandchildren were more than spoiled.

The mess.

All of the days events wiped everyone out. Including Kade.

We missed Jordan and Tawnie when they went back to her parents house after church. And Kelsey and Daniel went to his parents house-though they were with us all Christmas Eve so that was only fair.

Overall it was a great Christmas. The boys created memories that they'll probably forget. Maybe not Kade but definitely Tadd. Good thing we documented them. :)