Christmas Eve

Christmas Eve fell on a Sunday this year so we began the day at church where our ward had a joint Sacrament Meeting with the Spanish ward.  The meeting was primarily songs - congregation, choir, and primary performance, with some in English, some in Spanish, and some had a mix of both.  I absolutely loved all of it - the language, the friendships we have in the ward, and mostly, just being there with my family and taking a moment to focus on the Savior.  It has been a really busy month with so many fun activities, but it was nice to just get back to the basics.  I know there are a lot of churches that routinely have services on Christmas Eve, no matter the day of the week, and I can definitely see why people love to attend.  When we got home I really wanted to get a good family picture with all of us in our Christmas finest.  We took a lot....none are my favorite....but at least we have a visual reminder of how we began our Christmas Eve.

We spent the afternoon playing with the kids and getting ready for our evening celebrations.  For the last several years we have celebrated Christmas Eve with steak and shrimp at the Outback.  This year I decided to cook and we had my parents and Cory and Rhonda over to help us celebrate.  We had the nicest night eating and chatting and watching the kids' excitement for the holiday.  After dinner, we watched a few short video clips to remind us of the reason for the season and how grateful we are for Jesus' birth.  It was really the most perfect Christmas Eve.

I absolutely love this family of mine!

By this time of the night, we were all a little wild

Once Luke realized it was getting close to bed time, he started begging to go to bed and hurried to change into pajamas and brush his teeth.  Both he and Ruby quickly got into bed and then started begging us to go to bed to make sure there was no chance of Santa passing by our house.  The kids went to bed completely full of magic and big dreams and expectations.  Tim and I did our best to make sure Christmas morning would be wonderful, then we went to bed and turned the rest over to Santa.  We were all pretty amazed the next morning when we discovered all of the evidence of Santa's visit.  I think the kids may have liked the presents best, but the picture of Santa was priceless.