Christmas Eve!!! (& our "Lee" family Christmas party)

Okay...so the house is still a MESS (mainly the upstairs & basement), the laundry mountain still has yet to be tackled...I had PLENTY of time to get some chores done today, but naaaa, blogging sounded like MUCH more fun.  And hey I'm JUST about caught up on my Christmas blog posts.  hehe  :-)
I feel like today is the deadline to "put Christmas 2011 to bed" as tomorrow is Little Miss Macy's Birthday!!!  I'm sure my heart will be driven to write a little post perhaps & God forbid I post things out of chronoglical order.  So, I MUST finish these last couple Christmas posts BEFORE tomorrow.  ha!

Oh & between posts today I took down the Christmas decorations.  Not because I'm a grinch or a scrooge (or whatever), but because I've got to start getting this house in order for Macy's BIG two-year B-Day party this weekend.  And besides, contrary to popular belief, Christmas isn't JUST about home decor...it's about waaay much more than that.  Any 4 year old could tell you.  It's quite simply really.  It's about celebrating the birth of baby Jesus.  period.

Soooo.  without further adue.  The Christmas Eve post!

After a low-key, bum around the house kind of day...it was time to get ready for Christmas Eve Service at Bethany.  I have been anticipating and looking forward to this for quite some time now!  As you know, The Christmas season is kind of a big deal in this "religion" industry I am now employed in.  These last few weeks have been quite eventful as you could imagine.  Who'd a thunk?  hehe

me and my girls are dressed and ready to go!

You must now, there were a few "outtakes prior to this above "money shot".  Sure the girls aren't smiling, but they're not exactly UNhappy, & hey they're looking AT the camera (that in itself is quite the feat these days)  So thanks daddy for snapping this fun pic.  I have trained you well  :-)

Joe trying to get Macy to hold still for a quick pic...NOT happening.  She had WAAAAY to many ants in her pants.

 So she wouldn't stand against the wall with big sis like I envisioned...but we did get some fun "on the run", "not gonna stand still for nothin'" shots.

here Kenzie and I are giving her a sort of pep talk.  "Come on Macy, if ya just stand still and smile for 1 second, mommy will be SOOO happy"...."You're gonna have to come up with a better bribery tool than that", she responds.

okay, so maybe grabbing her bootie, pulling her down into my lap and bending over makes for a decent shot too.  I'll take it!

 After a VERY nice church service, we have arrived at the Mallory house for the Lee Family Christmas Eve celebration.

family pic attempt #1

family pic attempt #2.  Macy spots cookies across the way and is OUTTA HERE.

The kid polished off a whole tray of cookies all by herself.  Maybe if her uncles weren't such "pushover's" there would have been a few left for the rest of the family.  But no, she bats her eyes, flashes a cheesy grin, swipes her hand across her chest (her sign for please) and they hand over a cookie just like that.  sheeesh.  one after another...all night long.

I snapped this impromptu pic of Heather when just testing out my flash real quick...she was messing around, but I think this is a beautiful shot of her!!

oh my goodness...it's the Mallory's posing for a family picture.  What??  What is going here??

silly Colton  :-)

Great-Grandma Salisbury, G&G Lee and ALL ten grandbabies

 I didn't take any more pics that night, as I was just toooo comfortable.  We all changed into our Christmas cozies, ate a fabulous dinner and exchanged gifts.  It was a wonderful night spent with my amazing family!! Believe me when I tell you that most of the evening was about as crazy as the above pic  :-)

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I felt bad not taking/posting more pics, so I stole the ones below from Keri's FB page...she posted some mobile uploads that night & here they are  :-)

Keri went all out and even decorated the kids tables.  complete with games & stickers & more.  hehe

McKenzie may have lost her new princess chair to Little Miss Macy.

and the gift opening chaos ensues.

Anna, McKenzie and Ally were all SOOO excited about their matching Lallaloopsie dolls.

McKenzie was in rare form & extremely excited all night long.  Once her name got called to open a gift, she would giggle and laugh ecstatically.  Any time she would open something that may have been the same or similar to what Anna or Ally got, she would get even more CRAZY-HAPPY.  What a nut.  :-)
Oh and the whole drive home, McKenzie kept saying, we gotta hurry up and get home, I gotta rush up stairs and go straight to bed.  FAST.  Santa's coming!!  So we set out some milk & cookies & she rushed up the stairs and closed her eyes.  Why can't every night be "Christmas Eve"?
hehe
Joe & I, didn't get to go right to however, we had some last minute "elf" work to do.  It was ALL worth it the next morning seeing our girlies eyes light up at the sight of what they found under the tree and in their stockings.
The Christmas Day post to come later.  Maybe a lot later, I'm going to bed now. 
Merry Christmas to all and to all a GOOD NIGHT!!
HO HO HO.