Tuesday, January 04, 2011

Christmas Eve Festivities

We celebrated Christmas Eve at our house this year. It was so fun to have so much of our family here with us. Nana and Granddad, Papa and Gramma, Uncle Ryan, Aunt Nicole, Amber, Justin, Marin, Ben, Gracie, Aunt Laura, Uncle Kevin and Zoey were all here. It was definitely a full house!

DSC_0001

Papa and Gramma arrived from Texas! The kids could hardly wait to see them.

DSC_0002DSC_0004

Avery wasn’t so sure about Papa to start but warmed up fast!

After having a yummy ham dinner we had some friends from our ward come over for dessert. While we were in the middle of eating our yummy cakes and cookies a special visitor arrived. The kids were ecstatic and had so much fun sitting on his knee and revealing their Christmas wishes!

DSC_0006DSC_0008

DSC_0012

The kids didn’t know that Santa was coming and for the Scholz and Franson families who had never had Santa visit on Christmas Eve it was extra special! They were all soooooo excited!

DSC_0024_edited-1DSC_0034a

Jeff and his kids                                                     Justin, Julie (AKA:Frannie) and their kids

DSC_0051

Avery was not so interested in Santa. Her facial expression is classic!

DSC_0044DSC_0054

The Millers all loved Santa                                                  Zoey was not a big fan of Santa either

DSC_0055_edited-1

Before he left Santa asked if he could read “Twas the Night Before Christmas” to us! It was the BEST rendition of that story I have EVER heard!!! He was a FANTASTIC story teller!

When the night came to a close we opened our traditional Christmas Jammies present from Nana and Granddad and then watched the video of the story of Christmas called “Joy To The World”. It was a perfect night as we tucked the kids in to bed and awaited Christmas morning.

DSC_0060

The Christmas Jammies (Gracie is hiding behind Marin-sorry Graced!)

DSC_0064

When we lived in Colorado our house had a very open floor plan and the kids could see the family room the minute they walked out of their bedrooms. We didn’t want them to see their Christmas presents before it was time so to keep them from sneaking a peak we had them sleep on the floor in our room. Ever since then we have had that as our Christmas Eve Tradition. This year we pulled out the air mattress and put the kids in our closet since we still had a lot of wrapping to do and all the wrapping stuff was in our room. It worked out great and the kids had fun tucking in together!

3 comments:

Nicole said...

So much fun! We are glad we got to be with ya'll!

jensenfamily said...

looks like a great night - miss you guys! erin

mj said...

Just got home to TX and read all your blogs. What a good writer you are. It makes me miss you all that much more. thanks for all the good times, for having fab children and for being great parents to our grandkids. Love you all