Christmas Eve.

Merry Christmas EVE!

Thursday, Dec 23 Russell and Emily surprised me by cleaning the whole house while I was at work! That is definitely a great Christmas gift if I do say so. It was also great because it meant that I didn't have to clean it on Friday Christmas Eve, my day off. Emily and I celebrated by making cookies for Santa instead! Emily had a good time pouring the ingredients into the mixer and then turning on the mixer to watch it spin. She especially loved eating the cookies after they were done (That is my favorite part too!). We made Chocolate Chip Sour Cream cookies that were coated in cinnamon sugar...VERY GOOD! After cooking like 10 dozen cookies (I swear I didn't realize how big the batch was until I was cooking it), we cleaned up the kitchen and got ready for the day because my friend, Trista and her family, was coming over to visit. Trista and I have been friends since we were in Nursery so it was good to see her again. She lives in Logan with her husband and two darling little girls. Emily and Jaydee had a blast playing together with all of Emily's toys and Emily loved having a friend come over and play. She was so excited when she saw them pull up and when they came in, the first thing she said to Jaydee was "Come on, let's play toys!" While the girls played, I visited with Trista and Andrew and admired her new cute baby Kaycie. It was definitely fun to see Trista and get caught up again because I think the last time we were together face to face was when Emily and Jaydee were only a couple months old!

When Russell got home from work, we headed over to my mom's house for Christmas Eve dinner. After dinner, we had a little program. Instead of acting out the Nativity this year, we just talked about what Christ means to us in our lives. It was actually really good and all of the grand kids got up and said a few words about the Savior, who's birthday we celebrate.

Emily did not want to be left out so she said a few words too (with my help). She said she loved Jesus and she loved her family and was glad that we could be together forever because of Him. It was actually humbling to hear your two-year-old say those things.

When we got home, we put the final ornament on our Advent Calender. (Yes, I finally got it done. Are you impressed?) This has been something Emily looks forward to every night. She even reminds us we have to do it by saying "Put something on the Tree Mom!" then she climbs up on her stool and waits for us to tell her which pocket to pull an ornament out of.

We also get to open one present on Christmas Eve:

...and it was our matching pajamas! I made these pajamas this year and I think they turned out pretty good except Russell's were a little short and mine had a little too much elastic in the waist but Emily's look like they fit perfectly. Oh well, pretty good for not having a pattern and just winging it.

Before bed, Emily wrote her note to Santa and set out cookies and eggnog and an apple for the reindeer.

On bad thing though is, as you know, Emily hates Santa. She refuses to go near him at all without crying. So at my mom's tonight, my brother, Clay, and some of my other siblings were telling Emily that Santa was going to come into her house and and make sure she is sleeping and other things that Santa will do in her house. Well this got Emily freaked out and she would say "NO! NO!" any time they would mention Santa and him coming to her house. So that night when she went to bed she was terrified that some old scary fat guy was going to break into her house and get her. Even though I told her no one was coming into our house, she refused to go to sleep and cried until Russell laid by her bed on the floor and held her hand. Finally she went to sleep so we could too. Thanks a lot, Clay!!