Christmas Eve

 In the morning Anna and I made sugar cookies to set out for Santa. Anna loved cutting out the cookies and we used colored sugar for decorating--much easier than helping a two-year old frost a cookie.

 Dan thought it was funny that Anna clearly gave me some pats on the back during our cooking.

 After Anna went down for her nap, I couldn't resist making some frosting, but since I wasn't very well prepared, the cookies were very pastel and spring-looking.

We had dinner at my parents' home and afterwards, my dad read the Christmas story to us from the Bible. We dressed Anna up as Mary, but no one else really wanted to dress up. We did talk Dan into being Mary's donkey.

 I think she looks more like a little babushka than Mary, but she had fun.

My parents' dog, Carter, loved Evie and kept trying to lick her face. Poor Evie had a hard time getting away from him, but eventually learned to swat him away.

We got home around nine or so and opened our Christmas Eve present: Christmas pjs for Anna and Evie. We tried to take a picture of them in front of our Christmas tree, but Evie didn't want to hold still despite Anna's efforts.

After setting out Santa's cookies, we put Anna and Evie to bed. Anna had a hard time settling down because she was pretty sure she could hear Santa out in the living room, but eventually she did fall asleep.