Family Traditions

A look at our Family Traditions

Valentine's Day - We go all out for V-day! We wake up in the morning to the kitchen table being decked out all in red and pink hearts. We usually eat heart shaped pancakes with strawberries and whipped cream. The cupid leaves trails of valentines all over our house for us to find.

Then we exchange gifts - this year Emmy got to go to Build a Bear and make a pink monkey! We also try to do something fun as a family like the trampoline place or swimming. This year Daddy bought Mommy and Emmy roses as well!

Easter - Our new favorite Easter tradition is making Russian Easter Eggs. Because Leslie's parents live there for a short time, they send us fun egg decorating kits. Emmy loved the fun, colorful eggs this year. We also let Emmy pick out a dye kit of her own to do - this year it was Tinkerbell. We of course do the Easter Egg hunt and the Easter basket. We usually do these on Saturday so we can celebrate the true meaning of Easter on Sunday. We also gather with all of our extended family for Easter dinner.

Birthdays - We love a good party at our house! We are always looking for a good reason to throw a party and a birthday is no exception! Birthdays in our family are usually more like a week long event! We do a special Family Home Evening for the birthday person on Monday. We sing their favorite songs, have a lesson honoring them, and eat their favorite treat. On the day of their birthday the house is decorated all over. Balloons, streamers, signs, ribbons, wrapping paper, etc! Leslie grew up where Birthdays were a huge deal and Leslie has tried to carry on that tradition. This year Emmy got a special birthday surprise - Leslie's mom came into town for the birthday and made her a special Tinkerbell cake!

4th of July - All of our extended family gathers for an entire day of food, hot air balloons, water fights, and fireworks. 4th of July is often the most favorite holiday for many kids in our family. We get up super early to go watch the hot air balloons launch. Then we gather together for either breakfast or lunch and play together all day. We do relay races, water games, eat a ton of food, and the afternoon culminates with a massive water fight. Often it's hard to tell who the real kids are - the dads or the actual kids. It's definitely one of Jeremy's most favorite days! Emmy also gets a special 4th of July outfit!

Halloween - Leslie starts getting excited about Halloween at about the end of August- right when the Halloween costumes start coming out! Emmy has had some really cute costumes the last few years. The kids in our family all have a halloween party together where they dress up for each other and play lots of fun games. Daddy's favorite party of Halloween is carving pumpkins. He always does very intricate designs and has lots of fun! He also always carves a special pumpkin for Emmy that matches her costume. On the day of Halloween we go trick or treating at Daddy's office and then we go out that night with cousins to get even more candy! Emmy got quite the loot last year! We all thought she'd last 4 or 5 houses and tire out way before her cousins but she held her own and did several streets with them! She wasn't quitting for anything!

Thanksgiving - The last several years for Thanksgiving we go to Idaho to celebrate with extended family. We love spending time with all of our family and eating lots of amazing food!

Christmas - The Christmas holidays for us begin the day after Thanksgiving (no Christmas music until that friday!!!!) :) We always get a fresh Christmas tree - Emmy loves going to the Christmas tree farm to pick out a tree with her Daddy and Grandpops. This last year Emmy got to help Daddy put the lights on and decorate the tree. Daddy has a little train that goes around the bottom of the tree that is Emmy's favorite toy. Daddy and Emmy often just sit under the tree for a long time and play together.

A new favorite tradition that we've done the last couple of years is to go up to a fancy hotel in the mountains and spend the night. Daddy has his work Christmas party up there so one of the Grandparents comes with us to play with Emmy. It is a really fun hotel and we love going up and playing in the snow - it looks like a winter wonderland! It always gets us in the Christmas spirit!
We love doing many things as a family during December - service projects, baking cookies, family Christmas parties, buying Emmy her Christmas dress, lots of fun shopping, Secret Santas, Christmas pajamas on Christmas Eve, leaving cookies for Santa and carrots for the reindeer, etc.
On Christmas morning we all wake up early (thanks Emmy!) and we meet in Emmy's room to drink hot chocolate and eat pastries. We wait for Emmy's grandparents to come over and then we read the story of the 3 Wisemen in the Bible. We talk about why we give gifts to each other and why we really celebrate Christmas. We kneel together as a family and pray. We then line up in the hall from youngest to oldest and walk out to see what Santa has left. Santa always leaves his messy footprints in our living room that show Emmy where her present is! The Reindeer often leave their paw prints as well. Christmas morning is so fun because we take it nice and slow - we open gifts one at a time and have fun playing with presents along the way.

After we open presents, we gather with all of our extended family for Christmas brunch. This was a tradition started many many years ago that all of our family still does today. The menu is always the same - ham, Christmas braid (pastry), potato casserole, other sweet rolls, scrambled eggs, cranberry juice, and hot chocolate. It's so yummm!!!!That evening, we do our Christmas stockings. Santa leaves each of us a beautifully written letter in poetry form. Often they are silly and fun but sometimes they are very sweet and make us cry! We treasure these letters from Santa - a tradition he began in our family when our parents were just small children. Our stockings then trail many little presents, all tied together with string. We open them one at a time and have fun opening little treasures. We then get to dump out our stocking where we can find many candies and either an orange or an apple (or jalepeno's if you're Daddy!). It is such a fun tradition that we all love very much!

Other Non-holiday family traditions we have are movie nights eating popcorn and m&m's, annual family vacations, Daddy-Daughter dates, having picnics in the canyon during the summer, family reunions, family game nights, and many more! We definitely love to have fun together as a family and are always looking for new traditions!