We love to celebrate! Every day has something worth celebrating. These are some of our favorite holiday traditions.
Valentines Day:
We decided that when we had kids, Valentines Day would be about how much we love and appreciate our kids! We love showering our kids with love every day, but it's fun to make Valentines Day extra special for them. This year, we ate Jack's favorite foods and shared his favorite activities and spent our day totally tuned in to loving him.
Easter:
Dustin and Landon are members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, so for Easter we try to focus on the resurrection of our Savior, Jesus Christ. We read the accounts in the Bible of the last week of the Savior's life, and then on Easter day, we read about His resurrection. We get together with family for an Easter Dinner. We've also been known to decorate an egg or two and participate in Easter Egg Hunts - we're really just big kids at heart!
Every Fourth of July, Dustin's parents host a big party for family and friends at their house. We swim and BBQ, and have a great time together. This past year, we had a bounce water slide to play on, ran sack races and wheelbarrow races, had a bike parade, and the Fire Department even showed up to hose us all down (Dustin's dad is the Fire Chief for the local Fire Department)!
Halloween:
While Halloween isn't really "our holiday," we like spending time together celebrating in our own way. We paint pumpkins, have been known to dress up a little, and pass out candy while enjoying all the creative costumes! The past two years, we have shared Halloween with Dustin's sister and her family and we have loved trick-or-treating with our niece and nephews. This past year, Jack got in on the fun of running around with all the kids, but he wasn't really interested in the candy.
Thanksgiving:
We try to trade off families for this holiday, but we're not perfect at it. In actuality, our first Thanksgiving was spent with Landon's extended family, but not her immediate family. Our second Thanksgiving was with cousins at our house and no immediate family again. One year, we even had two Thanksgivings! One with Dustin's immediate family at Aptos and one with Landon's immediate and extended family in Newark. We were stuffed! To us, the best part of Thanksgiving isn't the food, but it's being and laughing together, sharing in the love that we have for each other.
Christmas:
Again, we try to trade off families for this holiday. We're also not perfect at trading holidays for this family either, but we try! This is our favorite holiday for traditions. The fun starts with setting up the Christmas tree the day after Thanksgiving (although Landon has been known to start decorating Thanksgiving night after we're done eating). We watch a Christmas movie and drink hot cocoa while decorating. We have an advent calendar to count down the days to Christmas, we spend an evening looking at Christmas lights, and we sing carols loudly all season long! One of our favorite traditions is to decorate the Christmas Tree with a special "Teach the Children" Santa story. We also love our Christmas Eve tradition of acting out the story of Jesus Christ's birth, complete with costumes and songs. Christmas Eve, when everyone is asleep, Santa signs each person in the house to let us know that he's been by the house. In the morning, before we can go open presents, we have to find Santa's signature and take a family picture. Christmas day is always spent together and it's wonderful!
New Years:
We play games with friends or family, eat yummy food, and ring in the New Years most often at home. A kiss at midnight is a requirement! Landon has even been known to sneak into Jack's bedroom and give him a kiss at midnight.
Birthdays:
We are blessed that all of our needs and many of our wants are met, so when it comes to birthdays we try to create memories! One year for Dustin's birthday, we went to a comedy show together. And another year for Landon's birthday, we went to a Sara Bareilles concert together. In 2011 to celebrate both of our birthdays and our anniversary, we went on our first cruise! We think it's much more important to create lasting memories together than to collect things and we try to give gifts that can help us do that.
