December 24- Christmas Eve

We missed a few days with our advent calendar this year.  Between traveling and everyone getting sick there just wasn't the time or energy to get everything done.  It is really rough for my OCD nature to accept that, but such is life I suppose.

Sunday we drove down to Salt Lake and promptly everyone was sick.  We had plans to go see the lights at Temple square on Monday night, but no one felt up to it so we stayed at grandma's and took it easy.  Tuesday went the same way, we just stayed in side and relaxed.  In the evening the kids were allowed to open their Christmas Eve gifts.

 Every year they are given a new ornament.  This year Charlotte got Cinderella.

 And Lily was given Rapunzel.

 This was Gideon's first time opening gifts and he was much more interested in the paper than the presents inside.

 His ornament was a pair of porcelain baby booties.

 We also open a new Christmas story book on Christmas Eve and that is our bedtime story.  This year's book was "Olivia Helps with Christmas."

The girls loved their nightgowns last year so I made them nightgowns again this year.  Not for Gideon though, he got some pajama pants and an appliqued onesie.

 Afterwards the girls got to decorate a gingerbread house with their aunts.

Before bed Lily and Charlotte put some cookies, an orange, and some milk on a stool by the tree for Santa Clause.  They took a while to fall asleep after being sent to bed, but what else could be expected.

December 23: Read "The Night Before Christmas"

 Good golly, is tomorrow really Christmas Eve?  You'd think that with doing and advent calendar it wouldn't sneak up on me like this.  Not too much left to do, but enough to keep me busy.

Today's activity was easy because I anticipated a busy day for today when I came up with this whole idea last month.  Our plan was to sit by the tree in our PJs and read "The Night Before Christmas."

Once the girls were ready for bed this evening Lily climbed into Tyson's lap and I set Charlotte next to her while he read the story.

 It was one of my favorites as a child, I even had it memorized a long time ago.  It brings back fun memories for me of my own Childhood at Christmastime.  I hope that these girls learn to enjoy it as much as I always have.

Books Shelves

When we moved last April a couple of my book shelves broke in the move. Since that time Tyson and I have planned on building some new ones so I have had all of the books that I couldn't fit on my other shelves sitting in Lily's closet. Well, now I need that closet so we had to figure something out. I've been bugging Tyson about it and this week he finished the project! We have had this nook that is worthless space and so we decided to place some built-in shelves there. I love them! We filled them up and the sad thing is that I still need more space for books... Well, I don't think that it is sad.