Christmas Eve

We started out the day by going to visit Santa at the mall & to do a little last minute shopping. Gavin was super excited about seeing Santa & telling him what he wanted. Can you guess what that might be? Yep....a pig robot. *sigh* 

 

As you can see from the photo Gavin was as happy as can be. Liam on the other hand....not so much. He hated it! I don't know if it's obvious or not, but I have a pretty tight grip on him just to have him sit straight. He was SCREAMING!!!! I was little embarrassed, but mostly satisfied as I find it hysterical when kids cry in Santa's presence. I'm awful I know, but I'm not alone am I? Don't most parents find it comical?

{disclaimer: Yes, my boys look like bums. It's freaking Christmas Eve & we are at the mall. I didn't have time to get them all dolled up. They were lucky we even did it at all. Oh wait, we did it more for us parents. Oops!}

 

 It snowed that day & I couldn't resist capturing the stillness of the evening with all the pretty white snow.

That night was the Shaw Christmas Eve Party with all the aunts, uncles & cousins on the Shaw side. Since the families are growing we sadly don't have everyone in attendance anymore. But those that came had a great time & it's always fun to see extended family.

 

We started the evening with filling our bellies with yummy food. After dinner we all sat around & did the chimes. I didn't get any pictures, but it was a lot of fun. Gavin had a ball hitting the chimes with the nail & he added quite a lot of rhythm to the Christmas songs. haha!

Me & my Gavin

Our cousin Chelsey was in charge of the game & I can't remember what it was called, but it was hysterical. Everyone sits in a circle. One person is in the center, blindfolded & holding a spatula (or other long handled object). They must rotate around the circle holding the spatula out until someone grabs the spatula. Then the person blindfolded asks them, "What sound does a _______ make?" Fill in the blank with an animal. Then once the person makes that sound while trying to disguise their voice the blindfolded person tries to guess who it is. If they are correct, you switch places, if not, you keep going. Sound weird I know, but it was by far one of the funnest games ever! We were all laughing our head off & played it for a really long time.

Cousin Chelsey & Uncle Dave

Gavin thought is was so funny that all these adults were making silly animal sounds. I'll admit that I loved it when he grabbed the spatula because you could always guess his voice right. He didn't quite grasp the disguise part. :)

Aunt Whitney

Gavin was the life of the party. He & Liam are the only kids that were there so they got a LOT of attention.

After the game Doug read the Christmas story from the scriptures. It is always brings a special feeling to be reminded of the true meaning of Christmas.

Kimmi, Dave, Roxy & Laura

And last but not least was the gift exchange. We always have a good time stealing gifts from each other & seeing what we all end up with.

Gavin of course was up in everyone's business trying to help open the gifts. :) 

G'pa Shaw was quite the good sport about getting a 'Girls Night In' present with lotion, bubblebath, slippers & all. Haha! In the above picture he is saying 'oooo aaaaahhhh'. Pretty funny!

After everyone left it was time to do our family tradition of opening up jammies & setting out Santa's cookies & milk. We were surprised this year by Danny & Whitney as they took it upon themselves to get everyone's Christmas jammies. So nice & thoughtful of them! And then we opened them....

 Yep! Onesie jammies. Danny & Whitney were so excited to have everyone wearing them. Those two are too funny! I think we look pretty hot. Haha!

 Brothers {Danny, Dave & Doug}

I couldn't stop laughing at how silly they looked. Grown men in whittle fuzzy jammies! 

We thought it only appropriate for Whitney to sport the Rudolph nose & antlers as her jams were Rudolph. Tee hee! She was a good sport. And hopefully she's not to bugged about me posting this. *eek*

Liam wanted a turn being Rudolph too. This is a fuzzy picture, but the poor boy was SOOOO sick & just miserable. For some reason we just always get sick when we travel to Utah. No fun at all!

 The whole gang all fuzzed out in our holiday jammies. Thanks Danny & Whitney for taking care of us!

So after Gavin & Liam were in bed we all went at it getting things ready for Santa to come. It was a lot of fun just hanging out as us adults & enjoying the spirit of excitement.

Twas the night before Christmas...