Christmas Eve

I guess these pictures should have gone at the end, but here are the girls on Christmas Eve. The first one is of the girls acting out the nativity. We put Lilly to bed after we opened presents and then we did our little nativity thing. Josey only wanted to be the baby Jesus. So this is Maddy being Mary and Josey being the baby Jesus and daddy was Joseph. I was any part that anyone didn't want to be. The bottom one is of the girls with their Christmas eve jammies and the presents they picked out for each other from the dollar store. They were SO excited, especially Maddy, that I thought they were going to explode! Oddly enough they actually ended up falling alseep by 9:00 or so. We were amazed. Unfortunately for Maddy though she woke up to use the bathroom at about 10:30 and it was all over from there. She had the HARDEST time falling asleep. We would check in on her and her eyes were forced shut and her little feet just couldn't stop moving under her blanket. She was trying so hard. It was really cute. But they were up at 6:30 and ready to see if Santa came. Maddy asked me later on in the day what my favorite part of Christmas was and I told her that it was when we were waiting at the top of the stairs to go down to see all the presents. The looks on their faces and the excitement they felt just made Christmas so special for me. We decided that we would spend Christmas Eve on the Oregon beach. We left in the early afternoon and headed for Mo's (if you want the catchiest/cheesiest jingle ever to NEVER get out of your head click on Mo's) for some yummy clam chowder. We hadn'e been to the one we were headed to so we were really excited when we got there and it had the most spectacular view. The entire thing practically was windows and the tables are just right along the windows so you can look out at the ocean while you eat. The girls were mesmerized!

Lilly wanted to carry the shell bucket around and was obsessed with the presents under the tree. We had to keep stopping her from trying to open them.


Then we headed over to Seaside to walk along the boardwalk. We were going to try to go the aquarium because I guess you can feed the seals there but it was closed unfortunately. It reminded me a lot of Santa Cruz with the quiant little shops and the stuff. It wasn't nearly as nice and a little rundown but it made me feel a little like I was home again.

It turned out to be a beautiful day as well. It wasn't very cold and the sun would pop in and out of the clouds and it was such a fun time at the beach. How odd is it that the only time we have been to the beach here when the sun was out, was on Christmas eve?

We love the Oregon coast. It is SO beautiful. Dustin has a couple of his friends that don't refer to Oregon as Oregon anymore but as God's country as Dustin like to call it.

We stopped at a little gallery and got some hot chocolate. And yes Lilly had to have her own to carry as always.

Maddy found some dog tracks and was investigating them.
Lilly just loved to run and run on the sand. She was so cute. Her favorite was to run away from the water.
Josey just walked around collecting any remnant of a shell and begging daddy to put it in his pocket, which like a good daddy he did. She of course couldn't part with one tiny crack of a shell.
This was Maddy's pose..........I just don't understand.

Maddy being a starfish.
Josey didn't get into it quite as much.
Maddy really wanted a picture with this statue. I guess this part of the Oregon coast is where Lewis and Clark ended their journey.

This is a video of the girls trying to entertain themselves on the hour and a half drive over to the coast. If you listen carefully you can hear Lilly chiming into the song. Pretty cute.