Christmas Eve

I'm going backward.  Get over it.  This is Christmas Eve.  Baker style.

We started the day, and by day I mean afternoon because Autumn had to take a dumb nap, with a little tour of Uptown.  Or at an attempt at a tour of Uptown.  A few months ago my cousin(ish) visited and did the tour and made it sound super fun.  So when Amber said she wanted to visit, I knew we had to do the tour because we are both avid readers of Leigh's blog.  And I think it would have been super fun, well, to be true it was super fun, but it was also super raining. And we knew this when we left the house, but we needed to get out.  Anyway, we parked, walked five or six blocks, got to the first stop, read the little blurb about how it's related to the Revolutionary War, realized we were soaking wet and freezing, and then followed the Great and Wise Greg into the skyscrapers.  Greg got us around most of the city and to most of the sites via sky bridges and cat walks.  It was kind of crazy and cool.  I kept pretending I was in New York and was super important with a super high paying job...and then I remembered I was pushing a stroller...but it was still fun.

from one of the sky bridges

 Then I remembered that the Bank of America building has same creepy singing animatronic bears.  The kids loved them.

the girls figured out that Amber always has food so they  followed her around like a bunch of little squirrels.

 Then Greg wanted to see the inside of the Hurst building.  The kids loved it. The stairs were the best.

I wanted just one picture of us outside on the tour at one of the tour stops.

 That night we had dinner, played Bingo but had to add a few rules because Rex legitimately won ALL the prizes, sang to Autumn (it was her real birthday), ate some cookies, put the girls to bed, then did the Nativity story again, but this time we only had Rex so all the adults had to participate.  Aside from Christmas cards, I think the Nativity is my favorite part of Christmas (hence we did it two days in a row).

Alice is such the little mommy; she pushed Autumn around for a while.

I tried real hard to get a cute picture of the kids in front of the tree.

Rex was an angel.  Cool costume, huh?

Greg was a wise man this year.  Doesn't he look wise?

the cast.  Rex is hiding behind me and shepherd Evan is taking the picture.  Amber is Mary and I'm Joseph.

 We finished the evening by putting out the presents, taking a picture in front of the tree, and watched a good ol' Christmas comedy.  Same as last year.  It was awesome.

Santa left this note in retaliation for a note Rex (and by Rex I really mean Greg) wrote to him.  Greg has some great conversations with himself.

ps Did I mention that Rex finally succeeded in breaking my camera?  That leaves me with my phone. For now.