Christmas Eve.

After we talked with McKay we started our Christmas eve traditions.

Time to start cooking.

{Dallin and Tiffany}

One of our Christmas puzzles!

Truman is determined to get it finished! He has asked to go to grandma's almost everyday after school so he can work on this puzzle.

We had a super fun surprise visit from one of Santa's helpers who also happens to be our neighbors AND Truman's primary teachers :)

Christmas magic is the best!
And so if being a mom at Christmas.

Another puzzle?!

Grandkids getting ready for our traditional Christmas eve dinner.

{Enoch, Truman, Anna, Bodie, Jean, Quinn}

We have had an ongoing tradition of having Mexican food for Christmas eve dinner - maybe in honor of McKay in Mexico?!  Hopefully the tradition doesn't end when he gets home.

I think I have a lot of pictures of Aaron like this, funny faced over the stove cooking for the masses.

Traditional poppers before dinner.

Everyone had to wear their crown during dinner and of course the younger kids loved the "prizes" in their poppers.

I LOVE Mexican food.  So good.

Tonight we had carne asada, homemade salsa and guacamole, tortillas and black beans that I slow cooked for 24 hours all topped with cotija cheese.  Devine.

After dinner we did our traditional Christmas program.

We started with this song "Do You Have Room?" that someone in my parents ward sang on Sunday.  My dad liked it so much that he asked the lady for a copy and then he made us all a copy and had us sing it.

We took turns reading a part of the Christmas story and lighting candles by the different characters in the story.

And we broke in Tiff's new bells.

I think we do better when Lauren leads us :)

We sounded pretty bad.

Tiff made new song posters for us to try but I think everyone was getting a little tired - we didn't sound to great.

Serious bell ringing business.

Enoch and Tagg.

Lauren had prepared a game with wrapped gift for everyone - she then read a "right" "left" story where we had to pass our gifts around.  It was slightly out of control.

Bodie would get fixated on a wrapped gift he really wanted and then wouldn't pass it.
It was comical.

Anna played her violin for everyone and even let Bodie have a try.

I might have a violist on my hands ... I need to look into this.

I prepped these orange cranberry pull-a-part cakes and put them in the oven so they are ready for us to eat in the morning.

Yumm-o!