christmas 2014

Christmas Eve

The Nativity at Grandma's house.  Always a favorite and these are the only pictures I took.  

Christmas morning!

Christmas this year was...different.  Brian was on-call.  That was hard and not very fun.  It was tricky to not know if/when/how long he would have to be at work, so basically, we couldn't plan on anything.  The only thing we planned on was waking up at 5:00 a.m. so we could have Christmas morning before Brian might have to go to work at six.  We made the most of it, but it was kind of sad.  Maybe that's why I didn't take a lot of pictures.

McKay sleeps in his undies, every night.  So when Brian and I saw this robe, we thought it could be a fantastic alternative to Christmas pj's for McKay.  It is so soft and comfy and he looks cute in this plush robe, so I'd say it was a good decision.  

Ellery posing with her bells.  I guess Santa didn't know if she wanted a big school bell or a little delicate bell, so she got both.

 

  

Layla Anna listening to her tunes with her new headphones.

Laysie posing with her fancy barbie and her puppy surprise, oh with new Elsa gloves too!  

One of the things on my Christmas list was a dress.  I don't have a dress.  I have many, many skirts, but no dresses.  We had looked at a store called Shabby Apple, but I wasn't ready to buy anything.  It took me a little by surprise to open a beautifully wrapped gift with this apple inside.  Brian had to point out that the apple was bruised and cut (shabby) and then I got it!  They don't do gift cards, so he got creative and I loved it!  Such a sweetheart.

A blurry family picture before we got split up again.

One wonderful thing about this year was the beautiful white Christmas we woke up to!  Can't plan it better- it was so cozy.  

At five o'clock we went over to my parent's house, without Brian.  It was too far for him to come and be able to make it back in time if he got called in to work.  It was really hard to leave him at home on Christmas day.  I almost didn't want to go.  But we did it anyway, and about an hour later he got called in, so it ended up being a good decision.  I was really excited when he got called in and announced it to my family and we all cheered because then I didn't feel sad anymore.  He ended up being able to meet us as we got home later that night, which was a very happy surprise.  We survived and luckily we won't have to deal with this again for five years.  

some christmas things we did

Last year it was the giant snowman, this year it was the "tree of life".  This tree in Draper was decked out with lights and this picture doesn't even capture the whole thing.  It was a fun family night activity, but what the kids really enjoyed was rolling down the hill right beside it.  This unseasonably warm weather has its perks!

This is the face of a proud first-grader in her first Christmas Sing!  I love what a big deal things are to Ellery, and this program was no exception.  She would practice at home just like her music teachers told her to.  Last  time we attended the first grade sing, we had a death in the family (RIP Sparkles) and it was pretty traumatic.  Luckily it was smooth sailing and uneventful this time.  She did great!

Clearly it was a busy month for Ellery.  She also had a dance performance.  This is her first year at Dance Showcase and she has had a good experience so far.  We are thinking of having her try out for a competition team in the Spring.  She was not super excited to dance to "Sock it to Me Santa", because she had to wear boxing gloves and it wasn't a very "pretty" dance, but it was adorable and funny and she did really great.  She has a talent for rhythm and choreography and is as flexible as can be.  

I admit to being quite nervous about being in the "dance world", in which I am not at all comfortable or familiar with.  Proof of this would be the fact that I didn't realize that I could go get my little dancer after her one number was over, so she could sit with us and enjoy the rest of the show.  Nope, I left her backstage waiting while the show went on- for probably 40 minutes.  I finally realized- after noticing other little dancers show up around me.  By this time, there were only two numbers left, but I booked it backstage to get her and there she was, waiting with one other little girl in her class (thank goodness for that!).  She wasn't sad or mad, just a little worried.  I, on the other hand, felt completely sick about this the rest of the day and had a really hard time forgiving myself.  At least I won't make that mistake again.

This little miss brought a list to show Santa.  I can't remember all that was on it, but I do know that her number one- a "kitty zoomer zoomer", and an i-phone were on the list.  

Elle's request was a bell.  Just a bell.  No idea where this came from, but it makes me love this unique little girl so much.  She doesn't want an i-phone, she'll be happy with a bell.  

McKay is at the age where it is getting a little awkward to sit on Santa's lap.  He was a good sport though and probably tried to talk Santa into an X-box.  It didn't work.

We saw Santa at the Riverwoods this year and it was the best!  Tiny line, free to take pictures and super convenient.  We will definitely go there next year too.  I also recognized this Santa from when he worked at the old PTC! 

We made our big batch of sweet chex mix and this is quickly becoming one of my favorite traditions.  Delivering the gifts after we bagged them up and labeled them was fun too, as the kids ran from house to house passing out the goods.  

This is not the best picture of my parent's birthday party, but it's the only one I've got!  This year the theme was "favorite things" and the image of my children dancing and singing with their cousins to Mary Poppin's "Favorite Things" as they held up items from Grammy and Poppy's collections is a memory I will cherish forever.  We might not have a lot of talents to show off, but I'll tell ya, we can throw a good party for those two.  

These gifts are from McKay.  He was supposed to just make one, but he asked his teacher if he could skip recess and make four more to give to his family.  Oh my heart!  I mean, look at that Christmas artwork!  I can't even stand it.  What a sweetheart.

Delivering our Light Awards is always fun.  It's funny to watch people's reactions to this.  It's a good opportunity to have the kids be friendly and look people in the eye when they tell them why we're knocking at their door.  

some christmas things we did

We got our tree from Baum's in Provo.  We were this close to getting a flocked tree- I really wanted it- but then I decided that majority should rule on that one and we went with green.  It was sparse, which I like, but couldn't hold our ornaments, which I didn't like.  

A new nutcracker joined our family this year too.  Shawn Cupcake was the name chosen to bestow upon that guy there on the end.  He joins Shiners, Tyrone and Buck.  

These guys were really into the advent calendar this year.  I took this picture right before we put it away for the year, because I like the arrangements that they made.  I love this so much and think of Jenn every time I look at it and am grateful she brought it into our lives.  It's a treasure for sure.

On the night Rachel got new snow tires (!) we had some time to kill in Salt Lake and went to see Santa.  Unfortunately, $22 was the cheapest package for a picture and that wasn't going to happen, so I took this picture of Ellery and we enjoyed just a visit with Santa.  Ellery told him she wanted a cheerleader Barbie, Layla told him about her "baby that sticks her tongue out with an ice cream cone" and McKay told him about the telescope, mega Nerf gun and magic set.

Then, we had the ward Christmas party and I took this picture for free.  So...

The theme was Christmas in Hawaii.  I have never seen Christmas parties more well attended than in this ward.  Wow, it was packed. 

On the 18th we went to BYU to see the Sacred Gifts exhibit.  It was fun to go all the way down there and I was happy to have something that wasn't commercialized for Christmas, and was, in face, centered around Christ.  This reminds me, we were driving in the car one day and McKay said to me, "Mom, I just found the word Christ in Christmas."  That little second grader  learning to spell figured out what it was all about. 

Oh, and we tried a new time-out method for Layla at the museum.  It kinda worked.

For neighbor gifts I am copying one of my Oregon friend's ideas.  She gave out sweet chex mix every year and I loved the idea of doing the same thing every year.  I thought this would be just for my connivence, but then when we made a huge double batch of this stuff I realized that it will be fun for us to make this together every year- spreading it all over the counter and sneaking snitches.  

I told Brian awhile ago that I hated when people would take something that was delicious/addicting to eat and declare it ______ crack.  I don't know if I can even explain this pet peeve, but anyway, I hate it.  So when Brian was eating this and couldn't stop he said, "This stuff is like crack."  I looked at him in complete disgust and asked him if he did not remember how annoying I thought that was.  He didn't.  So guess what he has now declared as Christmas Crack?  Yeah, no.

Layla set up this little concert for her mermaids.

We got a lot of snow before Christmas.  One Sunday afternoon we all went outside to play (yep, that's Layla and Elle in skirts).  

The next day we went out to build a snowman with our new snowman stuff.

Ellery built that baby all by herself.  Our snowman was pretty big, but sadly only lasted one day before being knocked over because of melting.

McKay made this snowflake at Grammy's house and asked me to take a picture of it.

Wow- and tonight we went to Bruce's house (or Baruselem's) to look at the always beautiful lights.   

After we went to Grandma's for hot chocolate and treats.  It was a fun night.

gingerbread

I think probably the tradition my kids look forward to the most is gingerbread houses.  Yeah, it's pretty obvious it's their favorite.  Here are some pictures from the fun night!

Layla's:

  

McKay's:

Ellery's: