Christmas Eve

We had a great Christmas this year. We began our Christmas festivities with a Christmas Eve dinner with the Farnsworth's.

We had the dinner at the Bloomington house where Traci is living now. She was a great host and the dinner of ham and funeral potatoes was very good. We were assigned to bring rolls so I made my mom's homemade dinner rolls for the first time. They turned out a little small but they were still tasty. We also brought the ever popular 7-layer bean dip and a very delicious candy cane pie made from this new candy cane flavored Jell-O pudding. During the dinner, I think we all got a little carried away with the Martinelli's Sparkling Cider:

Grandma Farnsworth was the funniest. She is a little wobbly anyway when she walks but now she had an excuse. She could blame the wobbliness on the drinks! I think this picture is so funny. I especially love how the books on the shelf behind her are LDS doctrinal books like The Holy Bible, each volume of Journal of Discourses, and we can't forget the big one, Mormon Doctrine! Cheers Grandma!!

After a ton of laughs, we played some games. Then we finally settled down enough to read the Nativity story in Luke 2 as well as "The Living Christ." It is amazing what Christ has done for us and what a great time to celebrate His birth and life.

When we got home, it was time to get ready for Santa. Emily was actually excited about Santa this year. Last year she wouldn't even go to bed for fear he would come. The first thing we did was sprinkle oats on our front lawn for the Reindeer:

Next we wrote our letter to Santa. All season Emily has been asking for two things: a jump rope and a mermaid. That is what she put in her letter. We asked Emily what Colby wanted for Christmas and she told us he wanted a truck so that is what Colby put in his letter. Over the past few weeks I have also been asking Emily what Dad wants for Christmas and every time she tells me he wants a kick in the butt. I laugh every time she tells me that.

After writing our letter, we put it next to our cookies and milk for Santa and we also put out some carrots for the reindeer.

As a tradition, we open one present on Christmas Eve and it is always new pajamas. So here we are in our new Christmas PJ's. I was a little lazy this year and just bought the pajamas. The pajamas, however, were only $3 and I couldn't make them for that much. Besides that, Emily loved her Rapunzel pj's and Russell got a kick out of his Angry Birds pants.

Finally we were off to bed in hopes that St. Nick would soon be there. Merry Christmas to all and to all a good night!