Christmas Eve

We spent the first half of our Eve driving home from Idaho after we stayed for the weekend, visiting the Kirby families up there. We tried and planned on driving home the night before but it was storming so bad that we decided it would be better to stay another night. When we finally made it home Mommy and Daddy took turns hiding out in the basement trying to get some very last minute gifts finished for the kids. I don't know what we were thinking starting some of our gifts only 3 days before Christmas...

The kids got to open up one present on Christmas Eve, (we love that tradition!) their Christmas jammies. Kylie was super excited, Hudson wasn't very amused, and it took a lot of convincing to get Emily to wear hers... I think we ended up telling her they were her magic princess jammies and she can't get presents unless she is wearing them... or something like that...

After they were all snug in their new pajamas, they cuddled up on the couch with Daddy and read the Christmas story in Luke 2. It was the perfect way to start our Kirby Christmas...

We put the little monkeys in bed and got to work. We hammered, painted, sewed, glued, you name it, we did it. And we stayed up until almost 5am finishing it (or almost finishing it, the oven still needs a door...) Lucky for us, Santa came in the middle of it all and we got to take a picture before heading to bed for a couple hours.

It's funny how as a parent now, I think I was more excited than the kids were. I almost couldn't sleep... almost.

P.S. Our tree is gorgeous. Every year we add personal ornaments to it to make it even more special. Every one of them (aside from the bulbs) has a story behind it, that's another one of our fun Christmas traditions :)