Christmas Eve

Scott in head-to-toe Boise State gear! His Christmas Eve "P.J.'s" were new Boise State warm-up pants! The other stuff he already had: beanie, long sleeve T, and slippers all Boise State!
Go Scotty! Go!

Whitney, McKenzie, and Samantha in their new Christmas Eve night gowns! Very soft and fleecy! So cute! It is getting harder and harder to find them "matching" clothes because they range from the "Big girls" department all the way to toddler. So we were so excited to find these carter night gowns for all 3 girls!!

Our little Ladies!

Christina in tiger print silk P.J.'s! Very lovely!!

We had the best Christmas Eve!! That evening we went sledding on our hill and had a blast! It had dumped so much snow that week that the snow plows had pushed up a huge mountain of snow on the side of our driveway, this was perfect because the new mountain of snow connected with our existing hill and made one heck of a sled ride! After sledding for about an hour we came in and thawed out. Then we had sloppy joes for dinner! The kids picked what they wanted and that was great for me super easy cook and clean-up! Just right! Low stress. Then we opened our Christmas Eve gifts of the ever traditional night before Christmas Pajamas! The girls were nearly bursting with excitement to open a gift, so it was a good thing that we let them do that first thing after dinner. Then we read about Jesus being born from Luke 2 in the Bible and watched a movie version of it as well. Then (as tradition dictated) we drank hot apple cider and ate popcorn while watching a "Christmas Movie" this years selection was the ever hilarious "The Grinch Who Stole Christmas"---complete with Jim Carey antics and all! It's a favorite! We had the best time just being together as a family and enjoying each other's company and personalities. Then we put the girls to bed. This is the one and only night out of the year on which Samantha (our resident night owl) goes directly to sleep. (so funny.) After the girls were in bed Scott and I had some items of business to take care of the in kitchen. We were assigned to bring the creamy potatoes and a pie to Christmas dinner (with his family) the next day. So Scott set out to make the pumpkin pie (seriously from scratch, with pumpkin we had gleaned ourselves from an actual pumpkin) it turned out famously! I made the potatoes and we were set! Then we needed to wait. To make sure that "visions of sugar plums" were well on their way . . . before playing Santa. While we were waiting . . . Scott was being very secretive . . . he made me stay up stairs while he "worked" on something for me. I was completely at a loss! I had no idea what he had planned! Well it turned out that "Santa" brought me an ipod shuffle in my stocking and "Santa" had already loaded it with some of my favorite songs. When I put the ear pieces in and started listening I got teary eyed because my favorite song was playing. It was a wonderful and sweet surprise! Way to go "Santa"! We had a fun and memorable Christmas Eve, there was a peaceful feeling in our home that night. It is rewarding to watch our children interacting together and the older they get the more fun we have together forming our own traditions.