Merry ALMOST Christmas!

Merry ALMOST Christmas, sweet Viilage! This is going to be a short post because with each minute that passes tonight is one step closer to another Tooth Fairy failure...

She lost her other front tooth this morning!

...and then you increase the stakes because there's always a chance that Santa will fall asleep on the job too!  I so appreciate Abby and Andrew's heart about these fun make believe characters... I told Abby she better go to sleep fast because Santa and the Tooth Fairy won't come if she's awake, to which her reply was very matter of fact, "that's right, Gracie might keep the Tooth Fairy and Santa up all night and they might be too tired to bring presents." After dinner we were talking about something Santa and reindeer related and Andrew was going on about what Santa was up to tonight to the point that I began looking at him sort of strange because it was so random.  Abby quickly said "remember Mommy, we don't want to spoil it for any kids that play the Santa game, so in case any of them can hear..." I look back at Andrew and he's nodding his head and giving me the eyes to say "that's exactly what I'm doing," as he continues on about what Santa's is up tonight. I love the hearts of these kids!  When the kids were babies is when we were praying and talking about what our family traditions would look like and we had great peace about telling the kids the truth about Santa, but making sure that they understood that most families play "the Santa game," so they have always been so cautious not to spoil Santa for any kids or even adults, "just in case they still believe in Santa!" Don't get me wrong, we aren't anti-Santa, in fact the kids still love Santa, they just know that he isn't responsible for deciding if they are worthy of presents and then delivering those presents.  I say all of that because I really feel like another praise this year is our decision to not play "the Santa game" because Abby is at an age and has a personality that likes to know the "why" behind everything (just like her mommy), and she's very serious about always telling the truth about things, so I can't help but think about how awful it would be if this was the Christmas that she/they figured out the truth about Santa, that would be too much for such a crazy season in our lives!

Today, we went swimming and attempted to go to a Christmas Eve service at an old beautiful church nearby, but they were full when we got there.  We ended up going to dinner and doing our own Christmas Eve service in our hotel room!

On our way to dinner...  Check out the kids precious outfits! Thank you Rebecca (and Mathew) for making the girls these beautiful matching dresses (you know how much I love "matchy matchy") and having Andrew's awesome shirt personalized! 

My Besties from California sent the kids Christmas PJ's and hats!!! They totally read my mind because I really wanted to get the kids Christmas PJ's to make Christmas in the hotel more festive, but didn't end up having time to pull it (or a lot of other things) off! So many of you picked up the slack in all of the areas where I dropped the ball (or would have) or had great need!  Thank you all for richly blessing us in the most perfect of ways!

In case you need a laugh, here are some of the many faces of Gracie Doo...

One of my favorites are the repeated zurberts...

We are celebrating the HOPE that Jesus brought to all the earth on this amazing upcoming Christmas Day!