Christmas Eve/Day

Christmas Eve started a little early for us.  Tim's parents came down on the day before the night before Christmas and the kids were more than a little excited to get started on presents.  They stayed for a long time and played with the kids - our kids are lucky to have such involved grandparents on both sides.  

They brought Ruby a Snow White dress and she has barely taken it off since then.

She also tells us to call her Snow White

Several years ago we copied the tradition of steak and shrimp on Christmas Eve.  I used to make a big dinner with all lot of specialty items.  Last year, I decided to keep the steak and shrimp, but let Outback do the cooking instead.  Best decision ever.  We spent Christmas Eve day with the babies (the big kids were with their mom this year), then met my parents and Cory for dinner.  The food was delicious and the company was even better. 

As we were driving home from dinner, Luke said that he wanted to go see the lights - he insisted we see the ones that we had seen in Cory's truck.  It took me a bit to figure out that he meant the lights at the Spanish Fork Festival.  We had gone to dinner pretty early so we decided we still had time to go see the lights.  I was surprised to see so many people there - they were obviously on to something since it turned out to be a great way to wrap up our evening.

In preschool Luke had made a container of reindeer food.  Luke has been so excited to use it and went straight to the table to get it as soon as we got home.  I loved watching him experience the magic of Christmas Eve as he carefully sprinkled the food and talked about Santa being able to find our house.

The kids were excited to put on their Christmas jammies, especially when they saw that their daddy had the best jammies of all.  It took a little bit to get everyone settled, but thankfully they are still small enough that they fell asleep pretty quickly and stayed that way all night. 

The next morning everything looked especially magical in our living room.  Santa even left a note behind and the kids thought it was so funny that he had eaten our cookies. 

As a id, I loved the magic of Christmas morning - I have to say - it is actually even better to be a parent and watch my kids experience it.  We had so much fun opening presents.  We stopped after almost every gift to open and try out the toys and were rewarded with lots of smiles, giggles, and thank yous.

Talk about nostalgia, I was jealous of this toy.

There were lots of Hello Kitty gifts.

She put on the backpack and said that she is ready for preschool

The pirate ship plays music and every time Luke heard it, he would dance.

After breakfast and a little clean up, we packed up and headed to Santaquin to continue the celebration with my family.  We spent time playing in the snow, eating, and just enjoying being together.

Ruby asked for a Kleenex to wipe her dolly's nose. 

My parents are always so good to the kids.
This year everyone got tracksuits.  Perfect for Christmas lounging. 

Ruby loves to read stories to Juniper.

The best part of the night was when my dad got out his new game, Pie Face.  Basically, Russian Roulette with whipped cream.  It was hysterical to watch and I think was probably Santa's best new toy this year.  We ended the night laughing and happy which seems the best way of all.