Christmas Eve Will Find You....

Christmas Eve on a Sunday...perfect in my opinion. It added the perfect center to the holiday. I can't believe we snapped this photo - our church is at 9:00, and this was at 9:05. Of course we were late with the snow and the fancy clothes and packing the church bag (with enough supplies, it would seem, to get us safely to the moon, but still isn't enough to get us through three hours of church...) I just had to get the shot, though, especially of RAP. This is a dress that my mom bought us last Christmas. We didn't have a dress for infant RAP last year, and my mom wanted to help us get one. We could not find a nice dress for a four month old, however, and did find this one, so RAP somehow survived a Christmas without a fancy dress last year, and we have this one to enjoy. Thanks, mom! I would have taken a picture of her in the afternoon, but she manages to get it dirty in about 10 minutes every time she wears it. Thus, I threw it on her, snapped a photo, and we were off to church.

RAP took a three hour nap in the afternoon, which was good because I had plenty of time to work on our feast. It was not good because she was up forever that night....but such is life. We had dinner with the Romney family. This is one of my favorite traditions. The Preslars never meet for Christmas Eve, so we always enjoy the evening with my family. Ever since the year 2000, when my parents went to pick up Peter from his mission in Mexico City and returned on Christmas Eve, we have had a traditional Mexican Feast. With my brother-in-law Van also having returned from a mission in Mexico and being an excellent cook, we have enjoyed the good stuff. Posole, roasted vegetables, ceviche, real refried beans...the works. We do it every year, and I love it. This year I made a sweet garlic shrimp and mushroom quesadillas. YUM!

I was proud of the kids - Christmas, and especially the eve of, can be so hard. So exciting that they want to burst. CTP held it together very well. I just have to say how much I adore my family - my dear hubby and sweet kids, and my parents and siblings. I'm so blessed.