Merry Christmas!

We are at the most magical Christmas age with our children. It was so fun seeing their eyes light up with excitement on Christmas morning. Addy had asked for a baby Tiger. Liam had asked for a star wars lego set, and Finn would have liked anything!  Because they had been so good all year, Santa sure delivered! Aunt Bethy came over for Christmas morning as well. Nana and Papa came over for stockings and Santa had left everyone a mini lego set to have a building contest with. Whoever won got the snowman. Aunt Bethy got hers built the quickest! You know you are a parent when you are more excited for your children to open their gifts than to open your own. After presents, we played for a good portion of the day, and Finn took a nap. After that we went over to Heather and Shaawns for Christmas munchies and games. It truly was a magical day.
















Liam got a BB gun from Papa and Addy named her Tiger "Sparkles"










Mama must have been good this year- I got two stockings! Santa filled my childhood stocking too!


I made my mom a patriotic table runner.
























They loved and continue to love the ispy quilt I made!


All the finished lego sets


Finn got a trampoline from Nana and Papa. Couldn't be a more perfect gift for this child.

Christmas Eve

We had a wonderful Christmas Eve! I know I say it every year, but Christmas Eve is my favorite day of the year. I love the excitement and anticipation. I love our Christmas Eve traditions. It's a wonderful day.

We opened up our new Christmas Eve jammies late afternoon Christmas Eve. They were a huge hit!  We then hosted Christmas Eve and did our annual Christmas Eve Nativity play and talent show. This year Addy wanted to be Mary, Liam Joseph, Izzy the Angel, and Peyton the Star. Finn was the wise man by default and he was the wildest wise man I ever did see!
For talents, Liam played two songs on the piano, Addy danced ballet in one of my old costumes, Izzy did gymnastics, and Peyton showed off his zipper tie. We have some very talented kids! We completed the evening reading The Night Before Christmas and of course the Christmas story in the scriptures.

Cookie Decorating!

The weekend before Christmas we headed out to Yerington for our annual baking weekend. Heather and Shaawn took my dad and grandpa to the 49ers game, so I took all the kids out. Aunt Pam also came out to help, which was a huge help and a lot of fun. I have so many awesome memories of baking with Aunt Pam as a child, so it was fun to see my own children creating similar memories.












































 
It was a fun, wonderful weekend filled with Christmas spirit!

Trimming the Tree

The kids were crazy excited to decorate the tree.  We put the tree up a little later than we usually do because I knew Finn was at the age where he wouldn't be able to leave the ornaments alone. After I watched the kids put the ornaments on the tree, I decided we would just put the kid ornaments on and the unbreakable stuff because I was terrified my precious ornaments would get destroyed. I was sad not to put them on, but after seeing how many ornaments had to be treated for emergency ornament repair, I was happy with my decision. ;)  It was fun to watch the kids reminisce while placing each ornament on the tree.

Christmas Best

Before going to see Santa...