The Crowl Family Adventures: Christmas Eve & Christmas

Well the big event finally arrived! Jesus' birthday! What a celebration we had. Last year, my sister treated me to a massage at a day spa downtown. As we were looking outside at Santa and the carousel spinning around while sipping hot tea, getting our feet rubbed, and watching Colter move in my belly, we decided that we needed to make this an annual tradition. So we headed back to the same spa with the added bonus of my mom coming along with us! Instead of baby Colter movin and groovin, baby Harper was looking ever so perfect in my sister's belly. They make you ring a gong to "start your journey," so after embarrassing myself last year, we let my mom take the reins this year.

We had such a relaxing time! I had a special tub soak in addition to a massage, and my sister had a special scalp/face rub in addition to her massage, which she described as 10,000 times better than getting your hair washed at the salon.

After our morning at the spa (sounds so fancy) we headed home for a bit before going to the Heavilands for Christmas Eve dinner. We had some delicious clam chowder, bread, and broccoli. After dinner we watched a short movie, called snowman.. well Colter really didn't watch it, he was way more into trying to get a handful of popcorn. We also sang Happy Birthday to Jesus over some german chocolate cake, and sang some Christmas carols with candles.

I woke up early on Christmas morning with anticipation and excitement. It was so fun to have a baby this year.. he obviously had no clue why we were extra excited to get woken up at 6:30. We spent the morning opening gifts, watching Colter shred up wrapping paper, and getting ready for brunch. My favorite gift I gave Ben was something I saw on pinterest. I will take a picture of my finished product when I hang it up. Ben spoiled me this year. Perhaps my favorite gift was a bottle of fancy salon conditioner that I have been raving about since getting my hair cut last.

My sister's family and my mom came around 10 and we ate a delicious brunch of overnight blueberry french toast and a yummy quiche, compliments of my sister's blog- bites. I couldn't wait for our gift exchange! We do an online secret santa drawing, so no one knows who anyone has (well those of us that aren't into sleuthing like me). We all opened gifts, and perhaps the highlight for me was when James opened an electric guitar shirt I scored at Old Navy on clearance. His face was priceless when we put the batteries in and he did a strum across his shirt. I lucked out by having my sister in charge of my gifts.. man she scored some great things! I couldn't believe it when I opened Just Dance 3.. I wanted it SO bad! We spent the rest of morning working up a sweat while busting out some awesome dance moves. (I think there will be a video coming soon). So fun!