"a fancy little christmas eve"

we had a little family christmas eve the night before we left for utah. it was perfect and i loved having the special time together, just us.

the kids and i donned our fancy attire and as soon as dad arrived home from work he was greeted by the maitre'd (nash). nash folded under the pressure and couldn't exactly remember what he was supposed to do, but eventually he coaxed dad to the table, set in our fanciest dishes and lit by candlelight. the fireplace crackled in the background (thanks l&d!) and the christmas tree sparkled.


the first course was served: baguette with olive oil and balsalmic. then we moved on to the rest of the fancy dinner:  herb-roasted cornish game hen with pearl onions, mashed cauliflower with blue cheese, and a festive pisachio and beet salad. nash & haven were freaked out by the whole chickens on the table at first, but then they took a few bites and the fear was gone. they loved it. and nash asked for a christmas dinner with chicken on the bone again last night. then, of course, we had some martinelli's and offered up some toasts. the kids thought toasting was pretty fun and we had a few rounds. nash calls it "the toast, not the one you eat." his toast was the best. something along the lines of "we got a biiiig truck and put all our stuff in it and we moved to las begas MERRRRY CHRISTMAS!"


after dinner the kids opened their gifts from each other, from us and from my parents. nash picked out a little kitty furreal pet for haven. haven picked out a travel lite brite toy for nash. they put on their new jammies and we put in one of the hit gifts: beauty and the beast. when i bought the dvd for them a few weeks ago it came with a free cd with a few beauty & the beast tracks on it. i figured we'd get some mileage out of it before they opened their gift so we've been playing it in the car. the kids know all the words and love to sing along. and nash can sometimes be overheard singing in his room. (this makes me so stinking happy-it was my absolute favorite movie as a kid. i was obsessed.) so they were just a little excited to get the actual movie (please just ignore my presence in the video. i'm so weird):



finally, we said farewell to jolly & beaker. we'd been prepping haven for a week or two on this. we told her that if she could give jolly all of her binkis to take to santa, that santa would bring her a dollhouse on christmas morning. she was totally on board and was so excited about it that she even ran to the front of the line to see santa at our ward party a few nights before and told him the plan. well, when the time actually came it was pretty rough. she threw a HUGE fit. it was actually pretty hilarious and steve took a video of it. but i guess nash got a hold of the camera and deleted it the next morning, so it's lost and gone forever. in its place is this (nash being a bossy older brother, haven in her christmas jammies, christmas toys scattered everywhere, and a glimpse into our little home):



but she did it-she said goodbye! and we've been binki-free ever since. only problem is that she's decided she can't nap without it.