Annual Christmas Eve Family Fun...

This year we decided to go to the Science Center for our Christmas Eve excursion.  This year it was the whole gang...Grandma, Grandpa, Amanda, James, Greg, and us.  We first looked at the special Leonardo DaVinci exhibit before heading over to the kids  for a bit.

Here we are checking out the holograph fish that move when you walk.

 In the kids section...

 The soon to be newlyweds and Greg...

 Quick snack break...we all ate chips...

We also looked at the human body exhibit and the space exhibit.  We barely scratched the surface of the place.  In the human body exhibit there was a test you could do to see how far you stretched and how your flexibility should determine your age.  I think I was the most flexible, but got an age in my 60's...something was clearly wrong.  I think James basically didn't even get an age.  Anyway, Paige really really wanted to do it, so she tried too even though it wasn't possible for someone her size (you had to sit down and put your legs straight out and feet flat on a board in front of you and reach forward on a board where it measured the distance you could reach electronically.  As Paige was doing it we didn't realize Rose took off her shoes too because she wanted to try! Awww we had to let her try too.  Another funny thing was the age machine that was supposed to age you 50 years.  We tried it with Paige and the picture looked HORRIBLE!! Apparently Maura looked younger when she did it.  It says it works best with 8-12 year olds. 

After the Center, we all drove to Shoeless Joes for our usual Christmas Eve lunch of burgers, fries, sandwiches, and other pub-ish foods. 

I love this tradition.  Christmas Eve is always exciting, and this gives us something fun to do to occupy the day.  By the time we get home it's time to prep some dessert to bring to the Christmas dinner, eat some dinner, watch a little christmas eve show, prepare the cookies and milk, and then off to bed!

Paige was really hyperactive at bed this year.  "i'm so excited! I'm so excited!" she was saying.  Luckily she went to bed easily, but I read her an extra book and lied down with her and rubbed her back just to be sure!  She had decorated her own cookie for santa, and a boy from her class had handed out little bag of Reindeer food, so she dumped that on the driveway.  We waited till Rose was asleep to do the cookie...Kinda mean for Rose to see a yummy cookie and milk just sitting there without being able to eat it.