Christmas Day

Waiting in the hall to go see what Santa brought


Coming in to see their stockings


Checking out what's inside the stockings


Santa loot


Going to see what Santa brought to some sweet girls


The famous pillow pets that they all asked for!


Maryella dances with the ballerina that Santa brought to her.


Kaylin is excited to open all her gifts from Mama and Daddy.


Elianna feeds the new baby doll she got from Mama and Daddy.


Annlee sings into her new CD player


OK, so now for a story from our Christmas Day. The girls had all asked for a guinea pig for Christmas. When they went in and saw all of their gifts that Santa had brought, there was no guinea pig. No one said anything, but after the excitement wore off, I could tell that they were bit disappointed. Well, our Christmas tree had a section of lights that kept going out, so Jeff asked the girls to come look for a missing light. While they were looking, Kaylin found a small box tucked in the tree. She says, "Hey, what's this?", opens it up and says, "There's a note in here."
She starts reading... "Dear Tate Girls, While you were in here opening your gifts, my elves delivered one more gift to you. It's in the other living room. Love, Santa." There was total silence for about 3 seconds and then one of them screamed, "THE GUINEA PIG!!!" They went flying into the other living room and there was the guinea pig cage with a cute little guinea pig inside.


They were thrilled! After going through several name ideas - Scooter, Josh, Skittles - they settled on Squeakers.

I'm so glad that they didn't get the guinea pig until after everything else. I think he would have overshadowed that other things. It all worked out perfectly!


After all the excitement of the morning, we enjoyed a yummy Christmas lunch. Maryella lit the Christ candle of our advent wreath and we read our last advent devotion. Then it was time to play with all the toys for the rest of day (while Jeff and I packed for Alabama! Stay tuned for a future post about that!)

Christmas Eve

The day of Christmas Eve was fairly relaxing at our house. We enjoyed one another's company. The girls did a craft after lunch - see the previous post about painting the tree. We just spent the day at home until about 3:00 when we had to get up to the church. The girls had to be there to practice for their parts in the nativity that would be a part of the 4:30 family service. Kaylin was Gabriel, Annlee was a wise person (the only one this year!), and Maryella and Elianna were sheep. They made a very cute and outgoing flock.



I just love this picture. It tells a completely different nativity story than any you've ever heard. There are curious sheep, distracted camels - so funny!

After that service was over, the girls went to the nursery to eat dinner while I practiced for the handbell song we would play during the second service. The 6:00 service was a beautiful music filled time that reminded us all of why we were celebrating. Jeff did a wonderful job leading us through the scripture readings.

When we were done with the service, we came home and the girls opened their traditional Christmas Eve gift of new pajamas.

They didn't match each other this year, but they did get a tiny set of jammies to match their dolls and animals. They were very excited about that. For a bedtime story that night, we read the Christmas story from Luke and sang (at Maryella's request) Santa Claus is Coming To Town. Funny story about that song. Maryella loves it, but won't let us sing the verse about Santa making a list and checking it twice. Apparently that one makes her worry that he has found out who is the naughty one in our house. LOL

We then set out the hot chocolate and cookies and carrots and sent our 4 little darlings to bed. I'm not sure who was more excited about the following day - us or them!

Christmas Activities

We are always so busy in the weeks leading up to Christmas! I've tried to condense the majority of our month into this one post. These are just the highlights, but you get the idea. We had a blessed and memory filled Christmas season.
Each of the girls had a school party. Kaylin had a brunch on the 16th of December.
Annlee had a Polar Express Pajama party on December 17th.

Maryella had a program on the 10th of December and a party on the 17th.


The kids all sang in church one Wednesday night in the Children's Christmas Musical Extraveganza.

Kaylin performed in the Nutcracker as a toy soldier and did a beautiful job!

She was so pretty!

After school was out, we had a week to fill with fun before Christmas arrived. Mema and Papa visited and brought gifts for all of us.

The girls had been begging for this Barbie Jet, so it made a BIG hit!

They also looked really cute in some hats from Aunt Jan.

The same day, we had a pancake breakfast with Santa at church.

The candy canes are a favorite with my candy loving sweeties.

The rest of the week was filled with crafts and fun. We made candle holders with jars and tissue paper.

They turned out really cute!

The girls painted a Christmas tree that lights up.

They spent one whole morning dancing to Christmas music in their jammies.

We drove to Stephen Foster Park one night and saw Santa and some really pretty lights.


They decorated cookies for Santa.

The first row on the left is Elianna's, with help from Mama. The next row is Annlee, then Maryella, then Kaylin.

We also made a Christmas cake to take with us after Christmas to Alabama.

The girls did almost everything and did a great job!

Ho Ho Ho

We had two (well, 3) chances to see Santa this year. We had a pancake breakfast at church where Santa always makes a visit. Kaylin and Annlee were excited to go see him this year and were ready with their requests. Maryella wouldn't go to see him at all, but she was willing to accept the "canny can" from him. Elianna wasn't too sure about the whole thing. A few nights before Christmas, we went downtown to see Santa and all the Christmas lights. Maryella had said how excited she was to go see him this time. We waited about 20 minutes in line while I took a few pictures of the girls in front of some of the Christmas lights. After I finished, the girls played nearby. 2 minutes before we went in, Annlee got an eye lash in her eye and Maryella hurt her leg somehow. The picture was less than what I had hoped. And Annlee was so disappointed that she hadn't sat in his lap that she cried all the way home. Maryella was especially pleased this time because she two "canny cans"! We agreed to go back the next night if they all promised to stand near Santa this time! So we got them all dressed up in their Christmas clothes again and went back again the next night - the 23rd. Everything went smoothly, they all made their requests, and we got our picture. Elianna was pretty much done with the whole thing by this time, but we got the picture anyway!