Christmas Eve

After work on Wednesday I was so excited to finish up work and have a whole week before I had to go back. Yay!!! I have needed this so bad.

 

Christmas Eve day I had purchased matinee tickets for the new Star Wars movie that had just come out that weekend. The boys were beyond excited to see it. And so were we. It had been 2 months since we had the opportunity to see a movie. 

 Once the movie was over we rushed home grabbed the dough for the bread and headed out to Mike and Heidi's for dinner.

We gathered around the table for turkey dinner. T&T are in Puerto Rico with her family, so we were a bit incomplete. But that's alright.

We ate and then had to hurry and practice our songs for the Old Folks Home. Usually we go caroling to those who don't get very many visits, but this year the Home wanted us to gather them and perform on front of them. Much more pressure, but still fun.

The whole Smith family is very musically talented. Me, on the other hand, not so much. I can pick up an alto line on songs that I'm familiar with, but I'm not that great. Thankfully the cute old people don't seem to mind too much.

When it came time for the three older boys to sing "Rudolph the Red Nose Reindeer" this one lady got up and started dancing and singing along with them. It was so cute. I loved seeing her get so excited about it.

After our mini concert we all went back to mom and dad's to hang out. Of course we always have to get a picture of these two whenever they are together (All of the old people were so in love with little Evie).

We had a quiet moment that night to reflect on things we were grateful for. It's something we do every Christmas Eve night. It's a little problematic with 3 rambunctious boys. Unless they are watching a show, sitting still and quiet for 5 minutes truly is a challenge. But they managed.

I am and always will be grateful told have family close by. It's a blessing!

Grateful for the tradition we have to go visit those who are lonely on Christmas Eve to bring them some good cheer and hopefully brighten up their Holiday!


I gave the boys all matching jammies that night and took their picture by the Christmas tree. I get a crack out of trying to get a picture with all three of them together. Ryker and Cyrus both can't get enough of Fynn. I feel like this picture says it all.

 The Love of my Life. My other Half. Any of those cheesy sayings don't hold a candle to how much he means to me. I am BEYOND grateful for him.

While Jesse was at work on Saturday (12/19) a guy from A-shift (Dennis Crezee) went up to Jesse and handed him a piece of paper. It was paperwork for a trade. He looked at Jesse and told him "I'm going to work for you for the first 4 hours on Christmas Day".

When Jesse called to tell me this later that afternoon, I was so shocked. What a Christ-like thing to do! Oh it just made me SO happy. When I told the Smith family about it Emily suggested that we give Dennis a gift basket. Why didn't I think of that? It's brilliant. I still can't get over how thoughtful and generous that was for us. What a man.

The original plan on Christmas Day was to wake the boys up early to have our Christmas morning before he left for work at 7:00am.  Then the boys and I would go down to the Smith's by 9am. But with the new allotted time that we had, Jesse didn't want to waste a lot of it driving to Cottonwood Heights and then back up to Ogden.

So after discussing what we should do, it was then decided that everyone would come to our house that morning so we could have more time together. It was going to be perfect.