Chapter 44: It's the most wonderful time of the year!!!

There has been so much to blog about lately that I feel I will not catch up, but first and foremost I wanted to write about our Christmas Eve and Christmas Day. I really do not know if I could convey in words how special Christmas Eve was for me, it has been my favorite day for many, many years now but this years was just as wonderful as could be. I called my Grandma Harvey that morning to ask if we could come for a little visit and sure enough Grandma told us to come on up (Scott had to work 1/2 day so I just wanted to get out of the house), so we made our way to Sunset and met Kari and her kids up at our Grandparents house. We had such a wonderful visit and I thoroughly enjoyed the time we got to spend up there, it was really neat to see the kids get excited about the same things that we used to get excited about when we were younger, like the growth chart, the birthday calendar and the basement, just to name a few. And then of course you never leave Grandma's house without something yummy, and just as I had prayed she would, she had made her yummy cranberry-orange cookies, Thank you Grandma and Grandpa for making us feel loved!!!!

As we came home from our visit, we didn't have to wait long for Scott to get home and then we all dug in to help with the making of our dinner, We do a candle light dinner and it was night filled with laughter, excitement and a warmth of love. The kids were too excited about Santa coming and didn't even want dessert they just wanted to go straight to bed. But alas we all gathered round and grabbed our scriptures for the reading of the Christmas story, as each kid was taking a turn reading, Bradley leaned over and said to me "Mom, I think I feel the spirit." I told him he absolutely is because it was so strong at that moment. Of course after we read the story Lainee piped up that she wanted to read the story again and that she wanted to read all the baby Jesus parts and all the fairy Godmother parts (okay so we have a little work to do with her :) we sang some songs and then had dessert which was heavenly, then the kids set to work on getting the cookies, milk and carrots ready for Santa, after they were satisfied with that, they all got their pj's on and were off to bed (mind you it was only about 8 pm), so with giggles and whispers, Scott and I left them to dream of sugarplums and we enjoyed a relaxing evening with a movie and yummy treats.

Christmas Day dawned to the sound of footsteps trying to hurry past the frontroom, so as not to peek as they hurriedly came into our bedroom. I love the sound of my kids on Christmas morning as they all jump into our bed and try to wake us up, and as we try to pretend that we don't know that it is Christmas Day, or that we are just simply not going to get out of bed, and that little spark of panic that comes into their voices, and then the huge relief when they realize that we are only teasing them. The kids are growing up so fast and so this morning I just tried to soak up as much of them as I could. For those who have been worried or wondering, yes Santa found his way here and no, he didn't even hide their presents this year, but he left a very nice letter to the kids and some very wonderful memories for us to share.