Christmas Eve

Aubrey & I started our Christmas Eve festivities making some crafts while Brooke was taking her morning nap. First we made an ornament of baby Jesus in a manger (made out of an envelope).

Aubrey loved gluing on the hay.

Aubrey showing off her completed ornament.

Then we made a card to leave for Santa. To thank him in advance for his gifts.



Aubrey loved the glue stick.



Putting on the cotton was fun too!

Showing daddy her Santa. We wrote the letter later.

When Brooke woke up she enjoyed her new found freedom of scooting. Just like Aubrey she is starting with going backwards.

She backed herself into a corner.

Most of the day, Jeff spent working on our meal. (See the post below for details on that.)

Here we are getting ready to enjoy our scrumptious homemade traditional meal!

Brookie especially loved the rolls!

Then after dinner and clean up we headed into the Front Room for some family time.

First we opened up our gift from the Bagley crew. We had heard that my SIL Karen had made a fun game that we could play together.

She took pictures of all of the extended family and made a match game. It was too cute! Aubrey loved playing it.

Aubrey was excited because she got the first match!

Then the girls got to open one present. They got matching red dresses from G & G Buell. Aubrey immediately had to put hers on and ran around the house saying, "I'm Cinderella." Funny kid.

Then we got out our scriptures to read/act out the nativity. This was always my favorite family tradition. Well it certainly did not go as planned. Aubrey was way hyper and Brooke was acting cranky and tired. I was a bit disappointed by our failure to bring in the spirit.

While I was getting Brooke ready for bed, Aubrey ran into the Family Room to play. I didn't notice this until much later, but Aubrey had gone to her nativities and once again put baby Jesus right in the center and placed all of the figures towards him and looking at him. So, maybe our Nativity play wasn't as much of a failure as I had thought it was!

After we got Brooke down, Aubrey got the milk and cookies ready for Santa.

She reminded me that she needed to put out her letter and picture for Santa as well.

Since, I was not feeling that great about our spiritual aspect of Christmas Eve, we got out a Nativity movie and watched that together before we put Aubrey down. This went much better. Aubrey sat right between us and watched the whole thing. She kept leaning over to Jeff and I and giving us kisses and telling us that she loved us. I was glad Christmas Eve ended on such a good note!