Christmas Eve

YAY for Christmas Eve finally here! Then again, I always get anxious knowing that everything will be over the next day and I sitll feel the childhood let-down after. 

As for the Christmas Eve You-Pick feast.......

I wasn't too surprised what everyone picked.

Obviously, I picked artichokes. But BESIDES those beauties I want you to notice that POT!!!!! It's what I asked for for Christmas from Brooks. And to cook 10 artichokes it would've taken all three of the little pots I've had since we've been married. So Brooks said, "Do you want your present early?" (Which I NEEEEEEVER do) and I said YES!!!!!! It's the most magical thing cooking something and having enough room in the pot to do it! I couldn't stop staring at it!

Emerson picked Cinnamon-Applesauce 

(open a jar, dump in bowl. Thanks for the easy-peasy dish Emerson)

Brooks grilled the chickens as usual with the Pepsi can in the chicken-honey.

Camden picked shrimp. NO idea how I allowed that to happen, but hey, it's Christmas Eve!

Aleeya-beeya picked biscuits.

Bronson wanted a mango/blackberry salad.

Iris picked mashed potatoes.

Roycey picked Mac-n-Cheese...."the kind from a box" (Kraft). YES!

We had the Elders over to eat again with us and I secretly called their moms (after tracking down their contact info) to ask something their family always had on Christmas back home or their favorite dish.

Elder Russel's mom told us he LOVED peanut butter bars and she sent me the SUPER easy recipe.

Elder Droge's mom said she didn't cook much on the holidays and that he didn't have something he liked better then the other. Finally she told me he LOVES the long green FRENCH beans and especially in salad. So that's what I did.

The FUNNIEST part is when we had it on the table he didn't really dish up much of it, let alone eat it. At the end when we told them we had contacted their moms he just sat there and said, "She told you I liked WHAT?!?!?" Apparently he DOESN'T much care for them. HAHAHA. It became the joke of the whole night.

CLEARLY, there was plenty of good to eat though! And we served the Cinnamon ice cubes in the Pepsi like Elder Cook's (from last year) family does. It's not become our Christmas Eve tradition as well. And that's saying a LOT since I'm a Coke-loyal.

We ended up having a ton of food. SO much leftover and everyone was stuffed. Almost we barely even finished one of the strawberry Christmas-tree pies!

After the kids swapped their sibling presents to each other and we READ Luke 2 together...... as opposed to ACTING IT OUT. We've had our fill of that already. 

The most surprising favorite sibling gift was the one Everly gave Emerson. It was this build-your-own-straw thing from the Dollar Store (they each got spend two dollars at the dollar store for their special sibling). It entertained everyone for a WHILE!

Then the kids all slept downstairs after we read our Christmas Eve book from Grandma. While they slept I guess Santa actually DID show up!

(Everly and Kellyn's spot)

It's gonna be a BIG day for the kids in the morning!!!! Can't wait.

(We actually went to bed at 11:30, not bad at all!)