Creating Family Traditions

I still remember how eager I was in our first year of marriage to create our own family traditions, especially around the holidays. For Christmas I had this brilliant idea to sleep under the lights of the Christmas tree on Christmas Eve. I thought the soft glow would be so peaceful and pretty. We even pulled the mattress off of our bed and put it on the living room floor so we would be comfy. It was SO bright. In fact, it was one of the worst ideas I've ever had. (My husband knew it would be, but he appeased me, for a few minutes at least) Not only was it bright, making sleep nearly impossible, but I wasn't thinking of how we would get away with it once we had kids. If your kids are sleeping under the Christmas tree, it's probably a bit difficult to have any element of surprise on Christmas morning.

That was over twelve years ago. Since then, we've come up with some really great traditions. And like many families, the pumpkin patch is one of them. There's just something about a pumpkin patch! Why is it that kids look so dang cute sitting next to pumpkins? I mean look at these gingers...

Harper 2010 (9 months old)

Kinley 2011 (2 weeks old)

Foster 2014 (7 months old)

It's so fun to look back over our pumpkin patch pictures and see how much our family has grown.

We have a lot of great traditions now: cinnamon roll breakfasts on holidays, Chris praying over the birthday girl/boy at their birthday party, eating at Denny's in our costumes after trick-or-treating, a giving Advent calendar at Christmas time...the list goes on. We barely squeezed in this tradition this year with the busy month we've had, but I'm so glad we made it!

What are your favorite family traditions?