Our perfectly imperfect Christmas Eve

With the craziness of life with three kiddos upon us along with the fun adventures we've been having with our out of town guests, Christmas has really snuck upon me! It wasn't that I had more shopping to do, it just caught me a little off guard when we had our first family Christmas gathering last night! Adding site-seeing and local attractions, airport runs, and staying up too late visiting has just added a new component to the crazy Christmas schedule! It's been so fun having friends visit though! I love it!

We had a late night driving home from Trenton last night and we hit the ground running today with a Christmas lunch, airport run, family dinner at our house, the Christmas Eve service, and then back to our house for some presents with Derek's family.

Caroline was pretty overstimulated all day, despite our best attempts to keep things calm. There was a messed-up-nap-routine meltdown from a nephew right before we left for the Christmas Eve service. Our family of five sat in a row together for the first time ever, but it didn't last long. Derek took Caroline to the hall and he was quickly followed by the other two-and-unders in our family group. Isabelle fell out of her seat, into Caroline's carseat, and then into the aisle-- not once, but twice. Jackson had a belly ache all afternoon and eventually fell asleep on my lap. And for the first time ever, my hair caught fire during the candlelight service. Fortunately, I caught it quickly.

Even in the midst of the chaos, I found myself so thankful for it all. All of the things that bring on all of the noise, chaos, craziness-- they are the best things in my life! Our expanding little family, the chance to spend the holidays with our bigger family, having friends come to visit-- these are my very favorite things.  I was thankful for Derek for being here to help care for Caroline as we tag-teamed through the service. I soaked up some snuggles from my almost-too-big-for-my-lap six year old and I smiled along with Belle as I watched her play in her own little world, even if she was falling out of the seat and whisper-yelling to our friends a few rows back.

It was a perfect night in the midst of so many un-perfect things going on all around.

God has gifted me with so many wonderful blessings on this earth and I am so thankful for this time of year to reflect on his greatest gift of us-- his son! I hope that you, too, have accepted God's gift of salvation. And if not, now is the perfect time! :)

I wish you all a very merry, perfectly imperfect Christmas!