Tradition

 When Noah and Mikayla came along Grant and I really wanted to make an effort to create traditions that were special to just the four of us.  I didn't want things to be the way they were just because that's how my family did it or how his family did it.  We wanted it to be OUR family.

So Noah's first Christmas we created our first really true tradition - new PJ's on Christmas Eve.  The first couple of years we bought everyone new PJ's.  The second year we did it a bit of a wrench was thrown into the works - Mikayla arrived nearly 6 weeks early and on Christmas Eve she was still in the NICU.  Not ones to let a little detail like that stop us, we bought Mikayla a pair of premie Christmas PJ's (which she swam in!) and all of us (Aunt Shell, too!) put on our own Christmas PJ's and went to visit her in the NICU.  As heartbroken as I was that she was not spending her first Christmas at home I smile every time I think about the four of us climbing on the elevator at 9pm on Christmas Eve all decked out in our PJ's.

The following year we altered the tradition a little bit - we made our own PJ's.  I bought shirts which we put everyone's name and the year on the back and then did hand prints on the front.  This marks the third year doing the PJ's this way and I love to see how different the hands look in just that short space of time.  A week or so ago I posted that I had finished the backs of the shirts and tonight we all added our hand prints.  I can't wait to wear them on Christmas Eve!

The next couple of pictures are ones that I meant to post on Saturday.  That was the day that Kayla wasn't feeling so well and she ended up passing out on the couch in the middle of her Tinkerbell movie.  She looked so absolutely adorable I couldn't resist taking a few snaps of her.