Christmas Eve

Since we celebrated Christmas with the Wilde's on the 23rd (we are normally with them on the 24th), we were able to celebrate it together as a family. As in, our own immediate family :)

We really tried to think through what we wanted to do to make it fun and memorable. We spent the entire day at home playing with the new toys and cleaning up from the night before, except to leave for coffee and drop off the chairs we had borrowed from my parents. That in of itself is unusual!

We went out to eat as a family to Hopworks. A local restaurant specializing in local and organic ingredients and beer. It is VERY rare for us to go out to dinner as a family, and now that Aspen has found a food he loves (pepperoni pizza), it is a fun treat instead of a chore.

It also helped that Hopworks had a play area for the kids!

After dinner we came home, opened stockings and ate the gingerbread house we had made with the kids a couple weeks earlier. We watched a Christmas movie and just enjoyed the evening without rushing. It really was a fun day, and it is great to see how we have grown into a family of our own, able to enjoy each other and establish our own traditions.