To kick off the Christmas weekend, Hyde Park hosted their annual Luminaria! I LOVE the luminaries and have SO many great memories walking around with friends, welcoming people to my parents house, and more. It is a truly beautiful night and a true Hutchinson tradition. Joe arrived home just in time to help light candles.
He brought friends to help out, too. I tried to get a picture of them lighting bags, too, but it turned out blurry. I thought it was still kind of pretty though. :)
My parents' corner on the night of luminaries.
As we have every year we went to First Presbyterian Church's Christmas Eve service. We have been doing this since before we were even married...just not together. It was at this Christmas Eve service that Robby first saw me handing out programs (and still could tell you to this day exactly what I was wearing!). I love reflecting on that every year. :)
After church with our sibs...just missing Ruthie and Ryan (and Savs!).
After Christmas Eve service, and after dinner at his grandparents, we headed back to my folks to spend the night and next morning. Joe will probably kill me for this, but oh well. :) I love just hanging out in the living room with my fam!
My parents' living room has a lot of golds and yellows in it giving off a very gold/warm glow in all my pictures. At first I was going through and correcting it, but then i decided I kind of loved it. That is how the room felt, very warm and cozy. So the first couple ones are "fixed"...the last few are just straight off the camera. :)
My parents getting ready to open one of the boys Christmas gifts...Taboo!!! We played a lot of Taboo over the next 24 hours.
Matt's first Christmas with our family! :)
As always, my mom read the Polar Express and my dad read Twas the Night Before Christmas to us. I love this tradition. Even as I'm writing this I'm chuckling just a bit because I think of recently when at a baby shower you were asked to share a favorite holiday tradition. She said this one and mentioned that at one point her and my dad asked if we wanted them to keep reading and we of course said "YES!" She said, "So now if you look in our window on Christmas Even we're just a bunch of adults sitting around reading children's books." Still love it.
The boys really wanted to open a present, so Bets and I picked one for them. Needless to say, we got them these hats. Love this little photo series even if I did have the wrong focus set on my camera for a few of them. :)
Joe loves his hat!
BEST FRIENDS!
Blurry Christmas Jammies.
On to Christmas morning!
We are so spoiled and we know it.
Rob's gift from my brothers. :)
The boys were very proud of their Christmas shopping and wrapping this year! :)
Note the arrow that says "Cute Brother" and points to a picture of Joe. I said "Wow did you save that just for this?" and Joe said "No! I found a whole stack of them in the living room!" To which my mom said "NO JOE!!!! I was saving those!!!!!" Oh well...so we have no evidence of Joe being in the Hutch paper. Whatever. :)
They even found a picture of Matt's brother Jak to wrap one of his gifts in! :)
Boo is such a helpful dog. :)
Another Christmas tradition...the Christmas Tree shaped cinnamon rolls! As always, whoever finds the pickle gets to pick the first cinnamon roll (this was a VERY big deal growing up!).
We enjoyed a delicious Christmas lunch (beef tenderloin...YUM!) before heading over to Wichita.
Again, I didn't take my camera to my grandparents or to Rob's parents that night. Christmas photo fail. I will do much better next year. MUCH better. I promise. Hope you all had as wonderful and blessed Christmas as we did! :)
