Christmas Eve

Christmas Eve is probably one of the hardest holidays for me to be away from my family (Easter would be a very close 2nd!) I've always loved the special traditions that my parents had for us growing up. On Christmas Eve we always went to Christmas Eve service at our church followed by lots of junk food and games.

The last two years, we've chosen to stay home so we could do Christmas morning with our children and begin our own traditions (some that have been passed down!) We've made an effort to be with "family" here. This year one of our neighbors invived us over for dinner. We loaded the wagon with the two kids, food, and cookie plates. We stopped at two other neighbors on our way over to say Merry Christmas and deliver goodies! We had a GREAT time!

One tradition that we've started is letting our kids open 1 present on Christmas Eve. This present consists of Christmas p.j.'s and books:

Sadie had fun picking out cookies for Santa this year (this is the first time she's done this.) She picked three cookies, but she was really h0ping that Santa would save the red cookie for her to eat! She wanted Santa to have apple juice. I asked her if Santa would like one of her snowmen cups she replied "No, he's an adult mom, those cups are for little kids. I think Santa would like a Hawkeye cup because he likes the Hawkeyes!" (She actually did meet a Santa this year that told her he was a Hawkeye fan!)

I had to sneak a few pics of my sleeping babies on Christmas Eve: