Twas the night before Christmas . . .

I have SO many pics to share that I will do Christmas in 2 parts. First, Christmas Eve! I was excited because I had the day off and lots of family fun planned. Unfortunately planning can only do so much and the day did not follow the plan. Every year since the munchkins were brand new we trek up to see the lights at Temple Square with Lowell's family. Even last year in a blizzard we made an attempt, though we had to follow up New Year's Eve to actually see the lights as poor weather conditions kept us from getting there. So I had grand plans of the same this year, considering that is what we do every year. But Lowell's fam had other plans (??) so not only would they not be joining us but we would have to be excluded from their plans as well. It was a pretty big bummer for me but oh well I think the best lesson we have learned this Christmas is that it is our little family that means the most--we are creating memories for our kiddos and ourselves and sure had a fantastic day together even if we missed the rest of the crew. In the morning we went sledding, hooray! We did a mini trip last year with mixed reviews but this year the kids were all over it! Carter especially couldn't get enough, I think Davey boy got a little scared by the speed and all the people. We went to the ampitheater at Silver Lake in Eagle Mountain, they have a great hill! My lil sis just invited us to do the hill at the gardens at Thanksgiving Point--I am so excited! From the first time I saw that hill I said it needed to be tubed but I never imagined that we'd actually get to do it. Stay posted on that next week. For now, pics from our first trip this winter. Trudging back up the hill, the tubes bigger than Davis
My little sledding man Carter
Lowell and C-man

Cutie (and cold) Carter
My fav Davis picture
Holy double sledding batman, you can just barely tell that Carter's snow pants are a little short on him . . .they are size 12 months! Davey's are 18 months . . .it may be time for new snow pants.
Me and my Davis

So after nap we headed up to temple square and decided to take a ride on Trax (local transit, for the kids, train!) for our Polar Express obsessed children. Next year I think we'll do the Polar Express on the Heber Creeper but this worked well for this year. Here's my wiggly men onboard.
Lowell and the boys in front of the light tree

And finally the quintessential family picture in front of the temple. I have one of these for every year.
We finished up the night by putting cookies out for Santa and off the kids went to dream land while Lowell and I stayed up past midnight wrapping.