Christmas Eve has always been full of traditions for our little family since we got married. We have added things along the way as we have had our girls and this year we added another. We try and always take a family picture. This year was a success i think:)
We take this girls to Build a Bear to pick out their own animal and make a new best friend to sleep with. They love this one! It's fun for us to see what they pick each year.
Kennedy's bear has a hood on her shirt. Pretty funny because Kennedy HATES wearing her hood!
Payton changed her bears shirt probably 5 times (the blue was not the final choice!)
And this fits her to a T!! She changes outfits at least twice a day.
Oaklee LOVES monkeys, no secret. And once she saw the unders Monkey HAD to have some too!
In the past we have always gone to Temple Square and looked at the lights. Well, no luck this year obviously. But we wanted the girls to still see the Temple. So we drove to the Denver temple. It looked so beautiful!
We then went to the Olive Garden for dinner, another tradition. The wait was around 40 minutes and i always love listening to the comments people have about our girls, and are they all mine, and how beautiful they are. It's pretty cool :)
The girls always open new pajamas on Christmas Eve. They seem to like this one too!
This year we added a new tradition. The girls all bought another sister a gift. We took them all shopping and split up so the other wouldn't see. They LOVED this! And I loved seeing how much thought they put in to it!
Kennedy bought for Oaklee.
Payton bought for Kennedy.
Oaklee bought for Payton.
Then we set out our Milk and Cookies... and an apple of course.
And the girls are off to bed!
Justin and I then spend hours wrapping all the gifts and watching Home Alone.
I forget every year how much this KILLS your back, but I love it all the same.
Christmas Eve was always a special day for us to just be together as a family. Most years we have spent Christmas day running from house to house. So Christmas Eve was a day for the little family we created. This Christmas season was a very different one for me. Being away and not going to all the parties and family gatherings was VERY HARD!!
I love and miss our families VERY much. I hope we can teach our girls the reason for the season and to always love each other as much as they do now.
