Christmas Eve

Christmas Eve is my favorite day of the year. Magic and excitement in the air, time in the kitchen with the kids, and it is wonderful to hole up and quit the world for a couple of days, and Christmas Eve is the beginning of that. And as though that weren't enough, it's also my birthday. I turned 30 this past year! Here are some pics of our wonderful Christmas eve.

A really, really cute girl brought in the birthday cupcakes.

Bryn stole Dad away for a minute to go to the store and pick out some flowers for me. My favorite color, even!

Presents! I will not deny it, I totally cleaned up.

Each of the kids had food assignments for our Christmas Eve dinner. 

Addison got to do the cheesy potatoes. It was his first time cooking on the stove, and he felt cool.

Leah was in charge of fruit salad, and Bryn helped too.

Aaron and most of his gang came over for dinner and the evening. We had so much fun with them. We had dinner, played, and decorated sugar cookies.

Then we all crowded into the family room to take part in the evening devotional. We watched the church's wonderful "He is the Gift" video, and then read from the Bible the story of Jesus' birth. Each of the children got a few wooden blocks from our nativity and had to listen for their part in the story and then go add their blocks to the set. I can't believe how well it went. They were all totally into it and sat and listened very quietly, even when their own parts were done. I felt the Holy Ghost.

After that Aaron and the kids headed home and our kids got to unwrap some Christmas jammies. Once they changed into them, we did our family gift exchange. We drew names to find out who we'd give a gift to. The rules were that it had to be under ten dollars, and we needed to try to include some sort of homemade element in our gift for our person this year.

Addison got Dad. He knew exactly what to get for him and did a lot of quarter jobs to save up for some toasty warm gloves. He also spent days writing and illustrating a book about him and Dad called "The Secret Mission."

Leah got Asa and was so excited about her gift, as you can see in the picture. She made him an "Asa book" with pictures of each person in our immediate family, plus grandmas and grandpas. And she picked out some snacks for him and bought them with her own money.

Bryn got Addison and wanted to make him a Creeper stuffed animal from Minecraft. It was a lot of work, but Addison absolutely loved it!

Asa got Leah's name and made her some diapers and wipes and a soft blanket for her baby (also named Asa). She was so excited.

Nate got my name and typeset a quote that I love from Stephen Covey, "The main thing is to keep the main thing the main thing." And had it printed on canvas so I can hang it on the wall.

I had Brynny and made her an apartment with little nests for all her birds that hangs on her bed. And I gave her a baby animal calendar.

We added a new stocking to the mix this year.

We hung all our stockings and put out cookies. Most of the stockings were missing a jingle bell or two, but Santa didn't seem to mind.

And here's the bunch by the tree right before bed. I was so proud of the way they gave and received their gifts. Nate and I were talking later and felt like even if Santa didn't come, they would've been happy with just what they got from each other on Christmas Eve.