Christmas Eve...

I know that Christmas Eve is supposed to be fun and exciting. But, sometimes it's just down right stressful! I don't know how everyone else's kids are as they are doing the "traditional" Christmas Eve activities, but mine (mostly one) were extremely HYPER!!! It's hard sometimes to do the spiritual part of Christmas when kids are literally bouncing off the walls! That being said...

We did have a great Christmas Eve. This year we changed things up a little bit. We added the kids reenacting the Christmas story. It helps when your youngest is finally able to participate and is the only girl (besides her mom...who doen't NOT want to dress up) and can play Mary. So after the kids put together there outfits (I must say the Jedi robes I made last year for Halloween have come in handy for many different costumes) and we dealt with a little "issue" with which boy would be Joseph and which would be the angel, we proceeded to have a nice re-enactment. (Side note...Dave was NOT too thrilled about being the donkey...Nat loved it however! Who wouldn't love to ride on their dad's back!!!)

(Hayden-Angel, Dave-Donkey, Natalie-Mary, Alex-Joseph,

Kiki-Sheep, Tiff-Narrator)

Something else that we added this year was to give everyone a chance to share their testimony of our Savior. It was really neat to hear what Hayden and Alex had to say, especially Alex because he doesn't share his feelings about these things as easily as Hayden does. It was my favorite part of the evening!

Then we sang some songs, opened Christmas PJs from Grandma Sharrid (thanks Mom),watched our LeFevre family Christmas videos, opened a new family game (Mouse Trap) and played it,ate goodies and drank egg nog, put out Santa's snacks and got our stockings ready, and then FINALLY put the kids to bed...who were WAY TOO EXCITED FOR THE NEXT DAY!!!