Christmas Eve Celebrations

Christmas Eve turned out to be a really fun night.  We have a couple of traditions we do and it set the tone perfectly for Christmas.  First was their present after naps.  I had Dave give them a bath so they were nice and clean.  I purposefully didn't dress them.  They each got their box and went to town...

Aubree has a challenge that we have to work with.  She has Low Emotional Threshold.  Which basically means that she is SUPER sensitive to emotions.  She feels it A LOT stronger than kids her age.  She doesn't know how to handle it most of the time, and she ends up "exploding" from what she's feeling inside.  This happens with good and bad emotions.  And one of her challenges is opening presents. (funny to us who don't have it, but it really is a hard thing for her) The surprise is too much for her little body to take sometimes.  This was one of those times.  She opened the ornament just fine, Belle, but as soon as she opened her other one she couldn't take it. 

So while she was on break, Sophie found out what was in her box:
a little pee wee pet hornet, and new pajama's.  Do you think she liked it?

And a new ornament, Cinderella.

Once Aubree got control of her emotions, she was all smiles.

After presents (and dinner) we took our reindeer food (that we got from our cute neighbor)
and let the girls sprinkle it over the lawn.

Then it was time to see the lights at Thanksgiving Point.  We had never done this and we were all excited.  The girls had so much fun!  And we had just as much fun watching them.  

They especially loved going under all the tunnels.

After you pull out of the lights, the road leading you back, is lined with pictures and quotes telling the story of Christ's birth.  The girls thought it was pretty neat, and I loved having another chance to tell them the story.  

And at the very end was the nativity.  On the way home one of my favorite Christmas memories happened.  It was simple and sweet, but impact full (if you were there) The girls wanted to sing carols.  We got into it, and at one point we were all singing, all the words, having fun, laughing...it felt like a scene from a movie where everything was going right.  Again it was simple, but what I felt made it one of my favorite memories!

Then at home we made Santa some cinnamon rolls, and frosted them with yummy cream cheese frosting. Mmmm, lucky Santa.  We put them on our special Santa plate, got milk in his special cup,

and found the perfect place to put them. 

After that, we read the Christmas story in Luke, and bore our testimonies to the kids.  

They were really excited but went to bed on time, and were placated a little with their new pajamas and pillow pets.  It was a fun filled, emotional, great night.