Over for another year

Christmas has come and gone again...

How does it sneak up on me every year??

December has been lovely, with lots of fun Christmas activities and lots and lots of anticipation for the big day. Am I the only one that thinks the anticipation is way better than actual Christmas??

Jason worked most of the day on Christmas Eve so the girls and I got ready for Christmas by baking chewy gingerbread bars for Santa and eggnog scones for Christmas breakfast. Then we went to a local rest home to hand out pictures to residents--the girls have been coloring stacks of pictures to hand out for weeks and it was a nice way to make Christmas Eve a little different than every other day.

After Jason got home, we went to his grandma's house for the annual family Christmas Eve dinner/party. We used to play White Elephant, but now that the family has grown exponentially, it was just too crazy and took forever! Instead we have the best Christmas singalong ever ("Jing Jing a Ling" and "Six White Boomers"!)

When we got home, Tempe, Helena, and Juno opened their Christmas Eve gift (new PJs, of course!) and put out gingerbread bars and milk for Santa before bed. Juno especially was really excited for her pajamas. She hugged and kissed me no less than five times in the half hour before bed saying "Thank you Mom, thank you my 'jamas!"

The girls went straight to sleep and didn't wake up until a little after 7. They were so excited to see what Santa had brought (btw, Juno has been saying "Santa come my house? On roof? On his way?" for weeks. She was soooo excited!) There was a pair of binoculars for Tempe (we live near a great place where bald eagles nest!), a unicorn Dreamlite for Helena, and a wooden train set for Juno plus all kinds of great things in their stockings :)

Other favorite gifts are Disney princess dolls (Jasmine, Aurora, and Ariel), a Cooking Light subscription for Mom, gift cards to The Cheesecake Factory, a babysitting coupon book, and a memory foam mattress topper! We got spoiled this year by Jason's great brother and his wife! They know that our mattress is awful and we both wake up with headaches nearly every day (no joke) so they got us the most comfortable, wonderful mattress topper ever. I love them :)

But the BIGGEST PRESENT of the year was the news that we are having a FOURTH baby girl!!!!

I had an ultrasound the week before Christmas and the tech printed out a picture and wrote the gender on it and then sealed it in an envelope. We went back and forth on whether we should open it or not (we were originally planning on being Team Green) but ultimately it ended up under the tree.

Funny story, I opened the envelope and looked at the picture and had no clue what I was seeing. I was expecting a "potty shot" and I'm still really not sure what this is a picture of. Jason pointed out that the tech wrote "girl" in ballpoint pen on the black part of the picture, so we're going with that!
We're thrilled to have four girls!