Christmas Eve 2014...

We decided to head up to Beaver Mountain to ski on Christmas Eve...

I was so excited to see Santa skiing right when we got there after I had been so sad to not have gotten any Santa pictures this year so far. Then I got my chance when he happened to get off of the ski lift right in front of us and said he'd be happy to take some pictures.

This totally made my day...and you can't beat that background for pictures with Santa!

Santa was a really good skier too!

 This was a really fun way to spend Christmas Eve. Except it was the day my nasty cold started...I tried to just ignore it at that point!

 Oh how I love these cute boys...

Getting ready to leave, we were down at the lodge and the boys wanted to do one more run, but I was done. So I waited at the bottom and was going to try to take a video of them coming down, but I glanced over at the lodge and could have sworn that I recognized our old friend Brady Cox (who lives in Texas now) standing on the deck. So I walked closer and thought it was surely him, so I slowly walked up the steps and kind of stood next to him and said his name figuring I would just walk away if he didn't turn towards me when I said it...haha.

Well as soon as I said Brady...he came over and gave me a hug and tried to get my goggles off to see who it was for sure. We have not seen him in literally years! Then he said his wife Audrey was down in the ski shop looking at ticket prices so I  went looking for her after Lars showed up with the boys.

We had to snap some pictures...

 So fun to see them after so long!

We used to hang out all the time before any of us had kids.

Now they have 4 girls! 

We ended up staying a little longer than we had planned after running into them, so we had to race home to get showered to make it to church in time for Christmas Eve mass....my favorite part of Christmas Eve.

I am always so very grateful for our faith and for the reason we celebrate Christmas!

After church we went home and made a quick dinner and the boys opened their Christmas Eve pajamas and ornaments, then we got changed and watched the Polar Express downstairs.

I love this picture!
 This is the first year I have put out all of the presents before Christmas Eve. They loved looking at them all wondering what was in them...

 And I loved the tags I used this year :)

 This night was one of my favorite memories of the our Christmas break. I just love the feeling of Christmas Eve and the excitement and anticipation. Ashton is almost 10 and the magic is still SO alive and well in him, I love it! He sat by me on the couch and could almost not sit still he was so excited and at one point said, "my stomach is all tingley" :) He is so cute!

 And that is the one night of the year that he begs to go to bed early.

And I love this picture too...Gunnar could not keep his eyes open any longer towards the end of the movie. I don't get to snuggle with him much these days so I loved this moment...

After the movie was over we got some cookies ready for Santa and put them out, then headed to bed.