Christmas 2016

On the 23rd, we decided it was time to do our traditional Christmas activities, starting with a ginger bread  house. 

 The kids really enjoyed eating the candy, as usual. 

 To be perfectly honest, I didn't help with the gingerbread house AT ALL. I think I was doing the dishes? I was doing something that was important.... it was either that or making dinner. 

 After the gingerbread house was done and we'd had dinner, we took the kids down to the Christmas Village to see the lights, ride a little train, and see Santa. 

 Luckily for me, my family was very nice about indulging my pictures. And it started snowing when we got in the car to head there, so it was a perfectly beautiful sight to see! 

 And since it was the 7 year anniversary of Caleb proposing (at lights!), he even gave a rare smile for a picture or two (although his enthusiasms quickly waned) 

 We decided to quickly get in line for Santa so that we wouldn't fun out of time again this year, and the kids loved playing in the snow while we waited. 

 Santa was first, and super excited to tell Santa what he wanted for Christmas. 

 Little Liam snuggled right up to Santa like he was a pillow, and it was SO cute! No screams for him this year, just snuggles. 

 Evelynn was our shy one. She was so scared and said she'd only sit on Santa's lap if mom stood with her.... She did end up smiling at the end after getting to tell Santa what she wanted. 

 I should have turned the the flash on for pictures at the little train (snow had turned basically to rain, so it was wet and dark and cold, and I just didn't even think about it til it was too late). 

Since we were now cold and wet (and it was WAY past bedtime!), we decided to head back to the car.  As we were walking, a police officer stopped us. He asked if the kids like toys, and then pulled out a bag from his car. The kids were so excited to get stuffed animals!  

 As anticipated, the kids were fast asleep by the time we got home, and SUPER tired out!

On  Christmas Eve was made sure the house was ready for Santa, and we made cookies. Our sugar cookie attempts didn't work out so well, so I didn't take pictures of that. But the kids got to each open a book and new jammies from us, and they were so excited! 

 My kids love to be silly (they get that from their daddy), and so OF COURSE, there are tongues out in nearly every picture. 

 The kids went to bed easy after reading their books and putting out Santa's treats. 

 Caleb thought it would be good to block the top of the stairs so kids couldn't go open things in the morning without us there. They listened, and I was impressed. Connor asked to go down and peak and see if Santa came, and came running back up so excited when he saw that Santa did!

Our morning wasn't fully without complications though.... we soon learned Liam (who hadn't been feeling well the entire week before with diarrhea and vomiting and fever and even some wheezing), had horrible dirrhea that ended up all over his new Christmas jammies, AND all over his bed. So starting laundry was first thing on our list, then starting Cinnamon Rolls for breakfast. 

I do have to say that we got ourselves a white Christmas! At some point during present opening, it occurred to me that the weather had said it would give us a white Christmas, and I wanted to know if it was right. I was so excited to open the door to snow! They (the workers) had already shoveled off our sidewalks and roads were already being plowed. It was wonderfully exciting! Our back patio was filled with several inches of snow!

We usually do something my parents did -- before breakfast, all you're allowed to open is your stocking. So the kids focused on that while I got the breakfast going. 

 When it came time to open presents, the kids were so excited! "Santa" had REALLY piled up the presents under the tree, so the kids (Connor especially since he reads more than the others) had fun climbing around under there and pulling presetns out. 

 We had them open Santa's presents first, which he decided to wrap this year. 

Side Note: they all got exactly what they'd asked Santa for!

 Next we worked our way through grandparents/great-grandparents/cousins gifts, which I didn't take pictures of on the nice camera. I had Caleb take pictures for his family and send them, and I guess I slacked off on my family! Sorry! The kids all LOVED their gifts, though!

Then we had the kids  open presents from mom and dad. They each got a "big" present they had wanted, then a movie, a WiiU game from dad, and a board game from mom. 

We think they were all wonderfully spoiled over Christmas! 

 I had really wanted to be at church (1 PM), but I knew that would mean I needed to be getting everyone ready by 11, and I started feeling like it wouldn't send a very nice message to Caleb if I was rushing through our family Christmas time just to get ready on time for church. I decided right there that I was not going to do that to him. I'd casually invited him to come with us, but he hadn't been interested in coming just for an hour, so on this day, I was going to put our family time first. 

We finished presents around 1 and I got myself and the kids ready at that point. If we didn't make it to church, we at least wanted pictures in the outfits I'd been planning for weeks. 

 The kids were cold (especially Connor), but Evelynn struggled to hold still in any picture I took. Haha!

 I personally think I've got some pretty cute kiddos!

 Caleb took some pictures for us (isn't he a sweetheart?) You can see that it was snowing quite a bit when I made my family stand out there. You should know that Caleb was already in snow clothes and had been shoveling our patio and walkway around our car, so he was perfectly fine.  

As soon as we finished snapping pi ctures, it was time for us all to get ready to play in the snow. We figured it was a White Christmas, AND Daddy was home with us, so we should just spend some time together. And we did!

 As usual, it wasn't too long in to the playing that Liam got sleepy. He started screaming and crying because he didn't want the snow to be deep. That was my queue to take him inside. 

After I'd gotten him alseep, I came back out and snapped some more pictures. We ran around, threw snow at eachother, and played our hearts out. 

Oh yes.... and remember the tongue sticking out thing I mentioned earlier? That they learned it from their dad?! ... Here's some proof. 

 Eventually we were all tired out and decided to call it a day. We went inside, made a delicious dinner, and headed to bed. It was a wonderful Christmas for us, although we didn't get to go down to American Fork like we had originally planned. With Liam's diarrhea, and the colds the rest of us had, we felt like we'd made the better choice in staying home. Surprisingly, our simple, easy Christmas was exactly what we needed and it was perfect.