Holiday Traditions

 The past five years the girls have each painted a nutcracker.  Last year Kayla mentioned she didn't want to do it anymore which made me sad but it was fine.  She's getting older and it was bound to happen but this year I went ahead and ordered two more nutcrackers for them to paint.  I wasn't sure if she would and she wasn't overly excited about it at first but she ended up taking seriously and painted one of my favorite ones yet!

I was worried Brooklyn wouldn't be able to paint her nutcracker with her wrist being broken but nothing stops this girl from crafting or doing some sort of art.  She loves creating!

They both came out so good this year and I loved that Kayla mixed her own colors to make hers green since it wasn't even a color included in the paint set.  When I asked if they wanted to do it next year Brooklyn of course said yes and Kayla said maybe.  So YAY, the tradition lives on!

Another yearly tradition is our Polar Express night where we surprise the girls before bed with a ticket which means instead of going to bed we will be driving around with snacks while we look at Christmas lights.  This year was our 8th year and now that the girls are older we had to get creative with surprising them.  Usually the ticket is on their bed and they would find it when climbing into bed but now they stay up later and Kayla is in her room talking to her friends or reading right before bed so it would not be as easy to hide a ticket.

So this year we hid their tickets in their underwear drawer so when they got out of the shower and went to get dressed they would find them.

Brooklyn was still very excited for the night out and about and Kayla was like, whatever.   I knew she would be sad to miss out on a night talking with her friends since they usually face time in the evenings but she didn't complain at all and once we got out and driving she was fine.

I'm always a little sad these girls are growing up so fast and Christmas time is when I really miss them being young.  Last night though they were so much fun.   They had Chris and I laughing so much even if it was at my expense for most of the night we really had so much fun.  

With everything being so different this year we really have made the best of our month and thankfully most of our traditions have always been simple and things we do on our own as just the four of us.