Christmas Eve @ Home

For Christmas Eve I did not want to get caught up with having to do house projects because I enjoy doing them, I have a strong drive to complete tasks, and I have an addictive personality. Put those things together when working on house projects and I'll be at it for 14 hours and you'll not get much interaction with me. I did do a little painting with my sidekick and it went well. Renae puts him in his room with the baby gate up and said, "Kevin, I need you to be on daddy duty for a little. Logan, I need you to watch Daddy and make sure he doesn't get into trouble." Well...you can't leave Reigner boys together without something happening. Long story short, Logan did not want to be behind the gate. So I held him in my left arm while I painted the bi-fold doors with my right hand. He was fascinated watching me and even went for the brush a couple of times (he got excited when I put the brush in my mouth and then assumed it was a toy). The fun happened when he grabbed a fist full of armpit and side-chest and squeezed...in my quick turning of the head with said paint brush in my mouth, I slapped the side of his head, leaving a tiny streak of evidence. 30 minutes later I was done the door and Logan was fast asleep in my arms.

After he woke up we made some cookies with Mommy, one of my favorite things to do on Christmas Eve. We all had fun with it...some more than others...notice the progression of the pictures (not staged, these are taken in order):

Mom spreads the flour and rolls the dough...

Logan takes a handful of flour.

He tries some himself, and decided to share with Daddy.

Then he decided to make himself look like a young Santa.

Then shares some more with Daddy, but this time by slapping me on the face!

Next it was on to the sprinkles.

And somehow we were able to get these roll out cookies from all the chaos. Did I mention before that you can't have Reigner boys together without making a mess?

After cookies we showered and changed for our Christmas Eve service at Christ Community. Then when we got back I gave a go at some chocolate chip cookies and sugar cookies (but forgot to get pictures). Then one of my surprises for Renae was to make Christmas cards for the family from Logan. So....

Renae cut out some red felt...

Logan got his hands dipped in white paint...

The messy hands were rolled onto green paper...

The messy hand was begging to be high fived...or to slap a face...

Some details were added with some mixing of paints and colored pens...

And the final product...a Santa Card from Logan (words were added later).

After this point it was past bedtime and we knew that we had a busy day ahead of us. Renae and I gave the house a quick re-arrange with furtniture, made sure that gifts were wrapped and ready to go, and that we had food set for the next day (our first time hosting Christmas with Renaes mom's side of the family). We were all set for Christmas, and something crazy magical happened that night too.

I took Kadee out for a walk, and when we got back to the house she began to growl. I picked up my head and something caught my eye. As I began to focus on what it was I was looking at I noticed that I was standing about 6-8 feet from a young 7 or 8 point buck. It kicked a hoof into the dirt as Kadee barked, then turned and flashed a tail, looked back once more at us and then began trotting through the back yard into the darkness. I am still not sure if it was a deer....or a lost reindeer....but one thing is for sure...I was scared to move when I was that close to a deer with antlers.