Christmas Eve 2014

Christmas Eve: my favorite day of the whole year.  I've read that family traditions make family members feel secure and happier than they might otherwise feel.  I think this is the reason I love Christmas Eve so much.  We do the same thing every year, I love the traditions we do and knowing what's coming.

We prepped for the day on Christmas Eve Eve :)  I wrote out a schedule for the day while Tony used hot glue to build gingerbread houses.  No one likes decorating a gingerbread house that keeps falling over, waiting for frosting to dry...hot glue all the way baby.  No one eats them anyways!

We started Christmas Eve off with a special breakfast!

Peter loves scrambled eggs

After breakfast the boys snuggled up for Christmas cartoons in the family room.

Once Peter went down for a nap it was gingerbread time!  The boys had a blast and it was fun seeing their creativity.

I don't even want to know how much frosting Joey ate during this

We set out our houses to dry and the boys colored pictures for Santa! Charlie really wanted to leave Santa Claus a gift this year.  He colored a couple pictures and even left out his elf hat for him to take back to the North Pole.

 Next was making red and green M&M cookies for Santa.  I got this recipe from a cookie exchange party I did one year.  It's our favorite!  So buttery, so good and most importantly... Santa loves them.

I had read that Santa's reindeer were at Thanksgiving Point so we got in the car to go see them.  Silly me, but they had flown back to the North Pole for Christmas and weren't there that day!  We went out for lunch instead.  Pizzeria Limone is one of our favorite places

When we got home daddy helped the boys bring up all of their presents from the basement.  Every year I go back and forth about whether or not we should put them out.  About 2 minutes of having presents  under the tree and I was glad I hadn't dealt with Joey trying to open everything all season!

Each boy, and me this year too, opened up new Christmas pajamas.  The boys were in HEAVEN!
We opened up our traditional Christmas Eve movie too.  This year it was Planes 2.

The boys got out their lightsabers and played until our finger food dinner was ready.  We ate in the family room and watched our new movie!

Before bed we set out our Santa cookies, milk and sprinkled reindeer food in the front yard.  We tucked the boys in bed and watched The Nativity lds video.  The Christmas story is so beautiful and the reason we celebrate this time of year.  

one last picture before bedtime

Merry Christmas!