December Festivities, continued...

In mid December we got together with a bunch of other friends and had a Family Home Evening. We talked about Jesus' birth and the true meaning of Christmas. We also had the youngest kids act out the nativity scene. Peyton was the Angel and looked oh-so-darling! Here she is with her buddy Zoe (who played Mary). :)Cutie Pies!

My friend Amanda with our angel Peyton. :)

Nathaniel, Zoe, Peyton and Blake...

We ate lots of delicious desserts.

And had a great time talking and catching up.

Our tradition is to go to Thanksgiving Point every 23rd to see the light displays.

Me and Peytie Pie. :)

Our favorite part is the Nativity displays.

Shayla, Kaleigh and Scotty. :)

We love going to the Cafe for our giant banana split. As usual, it was AMAZING!

The girls always love seeing some of Santa's reindeer's.

The next day was Christmas Eve! We carried on the Biehn tradition of the "Elf Presents", which is...Santa's Elves visit our house on December 1st and put a gift in the tree for each girl. The elves watch the girls behavior very closely all month long and if they're good the gift remains in the tree. If they are naughty, the gift disappears until their behavior is good. It's a wonderful tradition and the kids LOVE it. They are such good girls, so their gifts usually remain in the tree all month long. They got to open their elf presents that morning and loved them.

We have always lived around family and since we moved we have gone back to Cali almost every year for Christmas. As much as we loved seeing all the fam and loved being around everyone, we have made the decision to stay home for Christmas from now on. Home, as in Utah. We have decided to create special memories and traditions of our OWN from now on and this was our first year doing it. We will do this exact tradition every year. We took the girls to the movies that afternoon and we all saw Megamind. It was sooo hilarious! The girls were also excited to see the ad for the new Pirates movie coming out and wanted a picture with it. :)

After the movie we headed to TGIFridays for dinner and dessert. It was delicious!

Sweet babies!

♥

After eating we headed to Temple Square to see the lights. I will tell you...there is nothing that matches the spirit and beauty you feel at the Salt Lake Temple. It is absolutely GORGEOUS! Especially at Christmas time.

Daddy and girls. ♥

Pure beauty!

How beautiful is this?!

It felt so wonderful to be there and feel the spirit. The ambiance of Temple Square at Christmas almost takes your breath away. It felt so good to talk to the kids and have that beautiful reminder of why we celebrate Christmas and to focus on the birth of our Savior.

My babies and I. ♥

When we got home the girls discovered that Santa had left them candy canes and new jammies for the night. Yeah!

They changed and we turned off all the lights in the house, opened the blinds and doors, turned on Christmas music, drank hot chocolate around the Christmas tree and looked at the snow outside. It was magical!

There's nothing cuter than little girls in matching jammies! Thanks Santa. ;)

The girls then put treats out for the big man, we read The Night Before Christmas and then nestled into bed. It was the best Christmas Eve we've ever had! We are so excited to keep this tradition going every year.