Christmas Eve

I had to work Christmas eve because by the time I started work, everyone else had requested it off and they require 2 people to work on any day that isn't an "official" holiday.  Hey, at least I get July 4th and January 1st off for the first time.  Work was good though because whenever only 2 people work, my boss takes us out to lunch and only clocks us out for a half hour.  We got to go to this cute area of Bothell with a bunch of little shops and eat Thai.  Yum.

We have a tradition that Christmas Eve is at my parents house, and my dad makes his spaghetti.  Side note: I can't enjoy any other spaghetti anymore since his is so good.  It's kind of unfortunate.  Anyway, I got home from work and we headed straight to my parents house.  We do presents that night so that actual Christmas we can do the immediate family thing in the morning and invite more people over later and not have to worry about that aspect.

We ate delicious food, and opened presents.  Sawyer was so excited, it was fun to watch.  He got a Disney Planes toy he is obsessed with, a Leap Reader, and the boys got some toys together.  We got my parents a gift card to the Crab Pot (the place you get a bib and mallet and they dump a pile of seafood on the table for you to go at it), and I painted Erik and Destiny letters for their wall (they just bought a piece of land they are building a house on) they can put in their bedroom that says "Mr & Mrs" because they FINALLY sell ampersands at the craft store!  The only ones I could find forever was at Hobby Lobby and they were really expensive because they were fancy ones.  We got gift cards to the butcher and Jersey Mikes our favorite sandwich shop that they are finally building in Puyallup, and Erik made little vodkas in a fancy basket he flavored with different fruits.  We didn't know my grandparents would be there so we didn't get them anything :( but they got us money like usual lately.  Sawyer made us a book (it was adorable) and both boys made us ornaments.

Our little tubby was Erik's best friend when he started feeding him cheesecake.  I think he fed him most of the piece!

Erik started talking to dad and grandpa about synesthesia (which I only recently knew was a "thing" somewhat recently and not everyone does it) which apparently isn't genetic because everyone looked at us like we were crazy.  Pretty much it is when senses get crossed.  Some people can taste colors, draw music, etc but a common one is people seeing letters, numbers, music, or time as certain colors.  Some people are very good at remembering when a song came out "1975 because it was green" that type of thing.  (That was weird to type because 7 is brown and 5 is blue and saying it was green was all wrong). I think mine is rather useless and it isn't a very strong version but numbers have colors to us.  If I hear "three" it is green.  If I see a 3 in a different color, it is kind of uncomfortable.  Erik's colors are way different than mine so we started arguing over what color was what number.  I think both of our ones were white but that was it.  After that it was getting late and we went home to set up and clean up for the next day.  We wrapped presents and set them out.  Santa came and put two by the fireplace and filled the stocking.

I cleaned the toy room for hours because Avery was coming over and I wanted her and Sawyer to be able to play with the toys.  Can you believe the mess one little boy can make?

We went to bed very late and hoped the kids would sleep in.