Christmas Eve and New Years Eve 2010...

Christmas Eve Day we went to the National Botanic Gardens to see the train displays, along with the rest of the DC population! I was told it was a very cool display and worth seeing but I guess everyone else had the same info! I have been to the National Botanic Gardens before and I have never seen a line, yes we waited in line for about an hour! It was cool and fun and the kids really enjoyed seeing the trains but I really don't like crowds! I did learn an important lesson, if there are Christmas displays you want to go see,  don't go on Christmas Eve! :)

Making Friends while waiting in line.

Bribing the kids with Graham crackers while waiting in line.

Finally getting to see a train.

They even had Thomas themed trains.

All of the structures were made out of Natural Materials, like trees and stuff.

We also went to see the Water Skiing Santa Clause at National Harbor it was COLD!

We decided to have people over for some fun times on Christmas Eve as well as New Years Eve this year. The funny part was that while both nights were a blast neither were very smart, obviously Christmas Eve made Christmas morning a late start and full of melt downs from Madison. And New Years Eve Day we had to get up at 4am with the kids to make it to the airport for our flight to Utah. I don't really know why I do those kinds of things other than  the fact that I really enjoy hosting and I like to take advantage of the obvious reasons to get together with friends such as Holidays!

 For Christmas eve we did appetizers, which sounded like a good idea but I didn't have very many good recipes so I thought I could just buy stuff pre made like some taquitos, and mozzarella sticks, and other various store bought items. Unfortunately  they all looked much better on the box then they tasted. Note to self, get some good appetizer recipes!

We also celebrated Samantha's Birthday on Christmas Eve since there were kids over we took a picture and sang to her and let her eat a cream puff, just so we have a picture that proves we did celebrate.

We tried to do a reading out of the scriptures before we put the kids to bed. That didn't go very far since the kids were all in that post tired, hyper mood, but we made an effort, and that's all that counts when your kids are young right. That's what I keep telling myself about going to church each week too! "Its all about the habit!"

Christmas Eve we played Rock Band and "explored some space" in some of the songs, well I guess Tyson and Phil did anyway!

New Years eve we played with our new toy the Kinect which turned out some pretty awesome pictures if I do say so myself, however for the sake of those involved I don't think I should publicly share the incriminating photos!

Overall both nights were fun and we did make it to our plane the next morning on time and pretty well rested, since we did not stay up for the ball drop or any of the "real" New Years Eve celebrating!