Christmas Eve

This year we decided that we wanted to start doing Christmas at our own house.  I think there's something fun about a kid being able to wake up in his own bed and getting to go to his own living room to see what Santa brought him.  As much fun as it is being with all our other family, it was time to start doing it at home.

Christmas was on a Tuesday this year.  That plan was to go up to Enterprise Sunday after church and spend the night up there and spend all day Christmas Eve with everyone but Scott & Josie decided to bless their baby, Myles, on Sunday so everyone was here in St. George for that so we decided to just stay at our house Sunday night and go up Monday morning instead.

We got to Enterprise just before noon and the kids wanted to get right to work playing in the snow.  So we bundled them up and out they went.  Grandpa Simkins, Uncle Scott and dad all went out to help the kids build a snowman.

Alex in the boots I wore when I was his age

Alex, Halen & Cassidy getting the bottom of their snowman together

Halen, Jaxon, Cassidy & Alex with their finished product

After they were done playing in the snow, the kids came back in and grandma Simkins put them to work decorating a gingerbread house.  They had a good time decorating their own sections.

Next came the highly anticipated 3-on-3 basketball game at the church.  The teams were grandpa, Randy & Scott against Luke, Brent & Ben.  They had this planned for weeks and there was a lot of smack talking between the teams.  Basically, it was Luke & Brent not wanting their dad to beat them on the court.  Things got a little heated at times and us wives had to try to calm things down a bit. Ü At the end, Luke, Brent & Ben's team won.  Randy & Scott didn't want to get in the middle of the father/son antics that were going on so they didn't play as dirty as some of the others but I think everyone had a good time anyway and the kids had a lot of fun playing together while the girls watched.

After the game, we went back to my parents to get dinner ready.  It's become to tradition for us to have lasagna on Christmas Eve and just to make it seem more Christmasy, my mom has added a ham the last few years. Ü  My grandma & grandpa Singleton & grandma Simkins came over to eat with us then we had them and my parents open their presents we got for them since we were leaving that night.  Of course, my mom convinced us into singing her favorite Christmas sing, "Were You There".  It's always a struggle to get everyone to cooperate, but she somehow gets us all to come together to run through it a couple times each year.

We all went over to grandma & grandpa Singleton's about 7:00 to eat more yummy snacks and visit for a little while.  Mike & Dori and Michael & Kari & their kids came over to visit too.  We tried to get the kids to do the nativity play that we used to do every year when we were kids but not all the kids wanted to do it.  We got Halen to play Joseph, Cassidy was Mary, Myles was Jesus and Mia was an angel...oh, and Ben was the donkey. Ü  Uncle Mike read the story from the Bible.  It was a condensed version, but it was fun to see my kids carrying on a little of my traditions.

Joseph leading the donkey carrying Mary to Bethlehem

Mary, baby Jesus & Joseph

We left grandma's about 8:30 to head back home to hurry to bed before Santa got there.  It was almost 10:30 before the kids finally got to bed because we had to read our Christmas story under the tree (something we did every night in December) and get the treats for Santa sat out.  Of course it was much later for Randy & I to get to bed but it was so worth it.  I love that part of being a parent. Ü