Christmas Eve Traditions

Several years ago, as we were all getting married and dividing our time with our in-laws for the holidays, my mom decided to celebrate Christmas a day early so we could all be together. Now, each year on December 23rd, we all gather at her house for Christmas Eve.

Instead of doing a big dinner, we have lots of yummy finger foods and desserts. Here is Stephen and Jason helping me finish frosting my sugar cookies before we left for my parent's house.

Austin and AshlynJeff, Rick and Jason
Ashlyn and Tara
Grandma, Jason, Colton, Justin, Danale, Stephen

My parent's neighborhood has turned into Christmas tree lane! Each year we go on a "sleigh" ride to look at all the lights and sing Christmas carols. This year, the horse driver (I don't know what else to call him), had surgery and wasn't able to take us. My mom found some guys with a truck and a flat bed trailer who were offering rides and giving the proceeds to a charity. We decided it was the next best thing.Jessica, Bill, Ashlyn, Skyler, Stephen Austin, Tara, Ashlyn, JasonChris, Jessica, Grandpa (Bill), Ashlyn
Santa was at one of the houses in the neighborhood, so we stopped for a visit.
Skyler, Santa, Lauren, Sequoia Santa and Jessica
Ashlyn wasn't too sure about Santa!Jason, Ashlyn and Santa
Another Christmas Eve tradition, is having the kids act out the Christmas story. I'm hoping Jen got some better pictures than I did!

Sequoia and Lauren as Angels, Wes as Joseph, and Jessica as Mary
Jessica as Mary

The kids were funny this year. Wes and Jessica gave each other a hard time and teased about being married to each other. When Garrett showed up as a wise man, he and Wes greeted each other with "knuckles"!

Grandpa and Grandma enjoying the program

Danale and Ashlyn

I love the holidays!

Christmas Party

Every year, my sister hosts a Christmas party at her house. Jen and Jeff

We eat yummy food and visit with our friends, Jason and Tara Rickards

but the highlight of the night is always the white elephant gift exchange! Each year, the gifts get more creative and we seem to laugh even harder than the year before! This year was no exception! We had several doctors in the group who had access to some pretty funny stuff.

Jason was the second person to open a gift. It even came with a poem! We all died laughing! My kids read this from time to time, so I'll just leave it at that! By the end of the night, our cheeks hurt from smiling!

Christine (laughing) and Talli and Jeremy showing off their "hot" pants and duraflame log.

We had so much fun! Thanks Jen for another great Christmas Party!

Book Club

Book Club was at my house this month. I love having people over!

We usually do lunch and visit before we discuss the book. It has been foggy and cold so I decided to make my mom's potato soup and serve it in sourdough bread bowls. Yum! I ordered the bread bowls and made my yummy sugar cookies the day before. When I brought the bread bowls home the next day, I noticed they weren't cut! I called the bakery to see if they had given me the wrong order. They said there wasn't a note on the order and they weren't sure if they were supposed to cut them or not. Yikes! I only had a half an hour and I wasn't done with the soup!

Jason was working from home and offered to help. I didn't even have to ask! Love him!

Jason Rickards to the rescue

I had also decided to make some Christmas Wassail. I had just made some the week before for our Relief Society progressive dinner and it was SO good. I put all the spices together in the morning to simmer and was going to add the juice right before everyone came. The spices are pretty chunky and have to come out before you add the juices. Well, I wasn't thinking because I was thrown off by the bread bowls not being ready and I strained all my spices that had been simmering all morning, right down the drain!

My mom came early and offered to finish up the soup while I remade the wassail. It was kind of funny how crazy it was because I felt totally ready all morning. I put the potatoes in the oven at 8am! I was totally prepared! Now here we were 15 minutes before, still making soup, cutting bread bowls and trying to make wassail that really should simmer for a few hours. (It never really did turn out.)

My mom finishing up the soup (It starts in a pan and goes to a pot. It really is soup!)

We actually were just finishing up when the first person came! Not bad timing!

Jason finished the bread bowls, the soup was yummy...and the company was fantastic! Thanks mom and Jason for saving me! And thanks to my book group for another fun get together!

School Program

This year, Lauren was the only one who had a Christmas program at school. They stop after 3rd grade. I can't believe Jessica and Austin are so grown up already! Here is Lauren all ready to go. We went to Lauren's favorite fast food restaurant, Panda Express, for dinner before the show. Ashlyn loves vegetables! If you put a cookie and a piece of broccoli in front of her, she will always grab the broccoli! She grabbed this broccoli spear off of my plate and was so excited!

At the school program, they sang a couple of really cute songs and recited a poem. Lauren loves to sing! She is always singing around the house. Needless to say, she did a really good job. It was cute to see her standing up on the stage scanning through the audience to find us. When she did, her eyes lit up and she smiled really big. She couldn't help sending us a quick wave!

Christmas Lights

I wanted to add this post before Christmas has come and gone. Any of you that put up Christmas lights, know that it is an event! One of the things I love about Jason is his attention to detail. Here he is clipping each light so it would hang straight! JessicaWe had to put the ladder on the roof to get to the second story. I was wearing my boots with a 2 inch heel when Jason asked me to climb out the window and hold the ladder while he climbed up! I took one step on the roof and decided I was better off with bare feet!The kids goofed off outside and watched us on the roof. Lauren still adores Ashlyn! I thought it might wear off, but Lauren still loves being close to her baby sister. Jessica loved having free reign of the cameraAnother funny thing about Jason, is that whenever he is about to do a project, he puts on his pajama pants! It is really cute! He has several pairs and loves to work in them.I loved Ashlyn's reaction to the lights!

It is a lot of work, but I love how it looks when it is all done! I forgot to take a picture of the finished project. Maybe I will tonight. I think it would be fun to have pictures of my house as a kid all decorated for Christmas. My mom just let me borrow two big tubs of old pictures. Maybe I can find some in there! That would be fun!

Basketball Has Started!

Basketball season has started! It has been so fun to watch Austin play! When Austin was about 18months old, he loved to play basketball! We had a Little Tykes basketball hoop in the living room and he could make a basket from anywhere in the room! It was pretty amazing!Austin with the ball

I don't know if you can see it, but he has his tongue sticking out and kind of rolled! It was cute!Out front, going after the rebound!On defense

Ashlyn cheering for her brother

He didn't miss a single shot in his first game! I just love Austin and I'm so glad he is my son! He is such a great kid!My mom is such a good grandma! She comes to all of the kids sporting events, school performances and whatever else they have going on. I love that they will grow up feeling close to her and knowing how much she loves them! Jessica and Lauren will often ask if they can go to her house after school just to hang out with her and my dad and play. She always makes time for her grand kids... Ashlyn is definitely a Grandma's girl! She will dive out of my arms as soon as she sees my mom! She cries when Grandma has to go and will sometimes even hang on to my mom and tell me "bye-bye!" It's really cute, but it makes me mom feel really bad for leaving! :-)

Ashlyn showing us the wood chips from the playground.

It's Christmas Time!

I love Christmas time! I love the foggy nights, and coats, sweaters and gloves! I love the warmth and smell of lit candles! I love Christmas songs and yummy Christmas treats! I love wrapping presents, and chatting with strangers in line when I'm buying the presents! I love reminding my kids to think about if they are being naughty or nice (usually when they are being naughty) followed by my terrible singing of one of my favorite Christmas songs (now that I am a parent), Santa Clause is Coming to Town. I love hot chocolate and candy canes and walking into a store and hearing the best Christmas song of all time, Baby It's Cold Outside! Christmas time is just the best!

So, here were are, starting off the holiday season, decorating the Christmas tree! The kids always love to help, which means I usually have some rearranging to do when they are at school!
A few years ago, we gave in and bought an artificial tree. I thought I would miss the tradition of going out and cutting down a tree, but so far, I haven't! It's clean, it's dry, it's not lopsided, and it's prelit!

I keep saying I'm going to get a real tree for the kids. They could put it in the loft and decorate it with all the cute things they make at school. So far, I haven't done it. For now, our tree is a mixture of my stuff and theirs. Maybe next year I will have a "pretty" tree and a kids tree!Yes, that is the second floor that I am using to help balance myself!

I bought garland after Christmas last year for my stairs! I love it! Next year I want to add berries!

I hope you are enjoying the holiday season! Merry Christmas!!

It's Done!

I finally finished my wedding album! I was going to give it to Jason for Christmas, but I keep wanting his opinion on things! He has already seen it, but he said he is still excited to see it published in a real book! To check it out, click here !