taking a break

i've got a lot accomplished today! so i thought i would take a few minutes and load down some pictures from christmas eve!

it's a tradition to go see the lights at the mesa temple every year on christmas eve. we had so much fun. we didn't have kam and kels with us this year so we missed them. aliya had a lot of fun though! she loved the lights and all the people and the music!






i didn't take a whole lot of pictures. the camera i'm using right now is a pain to try and set manualy. so i just used it on automatic. a few nice shots anyways.



































they have the stable set up in one area of the grounds with the nativity set in it. there are always a lot of people standing around looking and listening to the mini program. aliya was sad that she couldn't see right away. so she wiggled herself through in front of the adults and was happy when she could see what everyone was looking at.

we went inside the visitors center for awhile. they have a christus inside with another short speaking program. we then went to go see a 6 min. clip called, "luke 2" it's about the birth of christ. there were so many people there that we didn't all sit together. aliya sat with baba. i sat in front of her a few chairs down. the whole time she wanted to know where jesus was. baba told her no that's joseph. finally baby jesus is born and mary is holding him. baba tells her there is jesus. aliya says in her outdoor voice, "no i want to see the big jesus not the baby jesus." she then continued to ask where the big jesus was until we left. it's hard to keep a 3 yr. old quiet when they are determined.

well we hung around for a bit and listened to the music and just enjoyed the atmosphere! it was nice being there as a family and i look forward to this part of it every year!

i was even ahead of myself and had the biggest part of the gifts wrapped. so i only had to wrap the rest of them taking me only about 30 min. craig did however have to put a few things together, but we weren't up until 2am wrapping this year! we were able to enjoy some christmas movies and get a nice nights sleep!