Another Fabulous Christmas!

We hope everyone had a fabulous Christmas! We certainly did. There is nothing better than hearing your kids say it was the best Christmas ever which I did hear a time or two! Here is a bit of what we did:

Every year, I insist on having Christmas Eve at my house. We have dinner (a variety of soups), then we go downstairs for a nativity scene with the kids before letting the kids each open 1 present. Here are the kids... so cute! (B and L were Mary and Joseph. L insisted on having this role, but of course had to make a stink about B being her husband!)

CK and Evelynne... the angels

My cute little Wise Woman. (if you are wondering why her cape is sticking out, it is because she insisted on wearing her Tinkerbell wings underneath.)

Christmas Morning!!!

KL all ready to eat breakfast.

Here they are... breakfast done... dishes done... all lined up ready to run in and see what Santa brought them!

The Santa Stash... in all it's glory!

KL: scooter, and an Easy Bake Oven L: PINK (that was very important to her) motor scooter

B: Motor Scooter, new skateboard, and shoulder pad standD: a new motor scooter, shoes, and skateboard.

KL: Doll with stroller, crib and high chair, and of course, a great princess dress.
KL kept sneaking away into the kitchen while we were trying to open presents so see what treats she could scavage.

B opening his present

D opening a present

Dave opening his present. I sucessfully kept this one a surprise from him. Good for me! It has a picture of him and his boss at the Supreme Court, plus the quill that they got (with a cool little plaque I had made up). We have had this stuff sitting on our dresser ever since we got back, but never got them framed. When I asked him what he wanted for Christmas (after I had already had this at the framers) he said he would really like to get his Supreme Court ready for his office. I told him I was sorry, but couldn't afford it. I kept the packaging on our dresser just to throw him off. I turned out really great and I'm quite happy with my little surprise!

KL opening a present... she really had fun with this part!

CK opening... (love the snow hat)

L sporting some of her warm gear

throwing a small fit when she was told she couldn't have any more candy.

And now... the real fun begins...

We went over to my parents house for dinner. We dine quite traditionally there on Christmas. We BBQ steak, chicken and fish. Dave always orders crab cakes. I personally love eating this way. I'm definitely a steak girl!

When we first got there, my little brothers were showing off their new toy. It was a water pressure rocket that you can shoot in the air. Here is CK pumping it up just before lift off.

And here we are watching...

Chalet, Mary, Katy and me!

Merry Christmas!!!

Merry Christmas, everyone! We hope you are all having a wonderful and special day.

Here are just a few pictures of our trip to go and see the Temple Lights earlier this week.

On the way... I just looked back and got a kick out of KL all bundled up in her coat.




We hope you are all having a wonderful day and we wish we could be with you all. Merry Christmas!

Christmas Sunday

The kids all dressed up in Christmas Sunday Best!
(it actually took us quite a bit of effort to get this picture.
KL just didn't feel like posing.)

We decided to go over to my parents house for a Sunday Night Movie. It was fun. We watched The Muppets... and you just can't go wrong there! Here is our family in our Christmas PJs.

KL was having fun loving the dogs. My parents have thier own lab, and are babysitting my sisters right now too. KL had her arms around both of them and was loving them, but absolutely freaked out when Indie (my parents dog) reached up and gave her a kiss. Here she is with just Misty.

And A Merry Christmas To You Too, Buddy.

Saturday morning, Dave and I took the kids down to the dollar store so they could do their Christmas Shopping. This year, for whatever reason, the school didn't do a Santa's Secret Shoppe, so we had to make the effort to take the kids. It was pretty amusing to see the things they came up with. L had drawn B's name and so she picked him out some deodorant. She also got really excited when she found a new pair of glasses to give her dad. I had to tell her that she might want to pick something else, because he can only wear the glasses that his doctor gives him, and not the kind you can buy at the dollar store (though, think of the saved money if he could. :) )

After we left, we drove past Costco, so Dave suggested that we take the kids in to get a hot dog for the kids. After all, where else can you take your family, get 7 hot dots, 7 drinks, and 3 churros all for under $15??? As we pulled into the parking lot, Dave drove past a car that he said would be his next car, then drove a little ways further and parked next to a somewhat similar car. As we got out, the kids were somewhat intrigued by this car that their dad said he wanted. They all looked at it, and L went so far as to look inside it. I told her to step back, but she was still looking. She had her hands cupped around the window and looked in. Again, I told her to get back because she was going to get the car dirty. This time, she came right over to where we were standing and we all turned to walk into the store. As we turned, the obvious owner of the car was marching towards us. As we passed him, he very curtly said, "I would appreciate it if you would step back from my car." I simply said, "Sorry." Though I really wanted to say, "In case you hadn't noticed, we aren't standing by your car any more and my daughter moved as soon as I asked, so please remove the stick from up your rear end, and just lighten up." Like I said, I didn't say that.

After enjoying our lunch, we walked back out to the car, as I got to my door, Dave said, "Looks like our friend left you a little present." Sure enough, there were some greasy napkins stuck under my door handle. Ok... Whatever. I chuckled a little immature idocy (after all, the guy looked to be in his late 30s-early 40s, plus there was a car seat in his car, so he obviously had at least 1 kid). I took the napkins and walked around to the front to find a trash can, when I noticed 2 smashed pieces of pizza stuck to my windshield under my windshield wiper. Seriously? Are you kidding? Yeah. He really showed us. Now, just to clarify, I'm not saying that L didn't do anything wrong. After all, I told her not to touch the car, but still... give me a break.

The kids were absolutely shocked that a grown up would do such a think. CK especially was quite traumatized and kept asking if we were going to call the police. I tried to make it a teaching moment with the kids. I said I'm sure that someone had done something mean to him, and rather than let it go, he went and did something mean to someone else. I tried to point out that this is what they tend to do to each other quite a bit and that what we were going to do was just let it go and forget it about it instead of passing this one to someone else. I also told them that we can do the same thing with nice things. When we do something nice for someone, they want to do something to someone else, and that can get passed too. Still... the kids had a really hard time getting over it... mostly the girls did. Dave and I both had to quite forcefully that the episode was over and we were done thinking about it. So... here is me being done thinking about it! :)

Really though, I do find it laughable. Also, jokes on him because we got free pizza out if it, and someone from his family will have to go without, right? ;)

Family Christmas Party

We always have Family Christmas party with my dad's family. It is fun together with everyone. The bigger the family gets, the harder is to get to see everyone, so we had a great time with everyone. Especially because there was lots of food.

We had special visitor come to this party too! David, once again, didn't really fee like sitting on Santa's lap, but here are the rest of the kids.

B:L

CK

KL. She was so excited. When she saw him come in, she ran up to my sister and started jumping up and down. Even after they had left, she kept standing out on the front lawn saying , "Bye Santa Cwaus! See ya yater!"

My little girls in their matching Christmas PJ's

Ward Christmas Party

We had our ward Christmas party awhile ago. We ate breakfast outside, then came inside where we got have a special visitor.

Here is CK waiting with a couple of her friends:

B, D, Josh

Mommy and KL

B with Santa

CK

KL (she was so excited! She kept asking all week to go back to "chuch" to see Santa Cwaus)

L

Cute little cousin Lily who was all dressed up for the occasion.

Christmas Decorating

I decided it was necessary to redo all my front room Christmas decorations since I redecorated the room. After all... how can you have a red and gold Christmas tree in a room that is blue and silver? It worked great when the room was tans and red. Here is my new living room. It just makes me feel happy!

I made little slip cover for some of the throw pillows on the couch




This is just another picture of my table all decked out fo a dinner party we had. I just always love always love the way a fancy table looks!

Dance Recital

We made it through another session of dance class for the girls. They both loved it. Here are the pictures from their showcase class.

Here is L with her class and their great teacher Miss Ashley in the middle.

(I'm sure you can pick L out... she's the one posing the most)

Showing their bar work

More bar work, in their favorite dance dresses. It was funny to watch the girls when they put these dresses on. They all were prancing around like princesses.

CK with her dance class this year.

Doing her "Footloose" Dance

CK doing her lovey arabesque