Christmas Part 2

Christmas morning started early at Grandma and Grandpa's.  We wanted to have everything done before it was time to go to church.  Allie got a piano from Santa which continues to be a big hit and Brailie got a camera (though she still says she wants a dora whenever the name of Santa is mentioned).  I only took a few of our gifts to Monroe for a few reasons: they were too big, I didn't want parts broken and lost and I wanted to enjoy watching my kids open the things we bought them in a calm and quiet setting where they weren't distracted.  I was counting on Grandma to go over board as she usually does and have a handful of gifts for the girls to open besides our few but she didn't (which was fine) but then the girls ended up opening I think 5 things each which is what I was afraid would happen.  I was worried with everyone being together that there would be a huge difference in the present piles and there was.  Allie loved the concept of tearing off the paper and kept asking "can I just open one more."  I went to the tree hoping to find something else but there was not.  Luckily she was okay with that answer. 

 She got a microphone from grandma that you can plug your ipod into and it plays the music and then she can sing along.  She was so happy with that and did a number of performances before it was broken.  Hopefully Grandma can get a replacement because she really loved it. 

Here are the girls right after church. 

Later in the evening Grandma wanted to get a picture of all the cousins in Santa hats.  Mayhem as usual.  I love seeing the chaos in picture form.

 Before we had left for Grandma's Greg and I worked out a strategic plan in which he got the girls out of the house and I set up all of the gifts we had left behind so that when we all got home they would walk in a find all kinds of surprises.  This is what they walked in to find:

 We got Allie a doll house, Grammy got her a art easel, Brailie got a wheelies car ramp, a rice digging box, and the girls got a basketball hoop and art boxes.  Uncle Steve sent them the most fantastic dress up box too.

Here they are modeling some of the dress ups.

The days following Christmas were filled with lots of playing with new toys.  The dollhouse was a huge hit for 2 days and since then hasn't been quiet as popular but I love playing with it so I ask the girls to play with me once a day at least and that works.  The zoomer cars are a big hit, the rice box is a big hit but is currently confiscated due to a little game of "lets see how far we can throw the rice."  On New Years eve Uncle Daniel, Auntie Jenny and the boys (Jakob and Andrew) came to visit.  They spent the night even.  We had a ton of fun with them.  They are the cutest boys.  I wish they would sit still long enough for me to just hold and get to know.  They loved all the new toys and with very little time the kids had the place in shambles.  After baths we played ring around the rosies, and the kids rode on Daddy/Uncle Greg.  The boys are so cute when they do something they like the both say, "yay" in unison and clap their hands.  SOOOOO CUTE.

We did it, we made it through the holidays and into the new year.

Christmas in Review Part 1

 I have been putting off writing this post about Christmas for multiple reasons.  #1 is that it takes forever to load all the photos.  #2 It takes forever to write about all the photos and #3 I just wasn't in the Christmas spirit at all this year so I have actually just been glad it was all over and haven't been in the mood to write about it.  But I know my mom and a few other relatives and friends would enjoy seeing these pictures so I am here to post. 
I am going to just let the pictures do most of the talking.

This is Allie playing in the snow at Grandmas in Monroe.  She was so excited to get to do this.  She had been talking about it for weeks prior.  No other parents would let their kids come outside so we went by ourselves and she had fun but would have had more fun if we had snow pants that fit.  She also wanted to make a snowman and it was the wrong kind of snow but oh well.

On Christmas eve all the cousins decorated a sugar cookie that Auntie Carries brought.  Notice who has the most sprinkles?

I love making collages like this because we always think it is a great idea to try and get a cousins shot and they are always hillarious and never perfect.  I love looking at each one and seeing what each kid is doing each time we tryed to take the picture.

I thought this picture was perfect.  Allie loves her cousins.  I wish they were closer and could be better friends.

Brailie showing off her Dora Christmas jammies.

Christmas jammies

Santa came to Grandma's house on Christmas eve.  Allie was excited to see him but did not want to go near him.  Then after seeing the cousins do it she got brave and took Brailie with her.  She just jumped on his knee and started talking.  This was a MAJOR breakthrough.  After she came running to me and asked to go outside to see the reindeer.  Luckily I told her Santa had them at home resting before the big night.

The one thing that did make my holiday was this man.  We had an ugly sweater party amongst the adults. Teri didn't understand that it was ugly Christmas sweaters and just wore a plain ugly one and Ryan chickened out and just wore a t-shirt.  Kalen was wearing a plaid maternity turtleneck and I think everyone thought he was going to take the cake until Greg came upstairs in this.

Everyone was in tears laughing including me.  He later added a shirt underneath.  Guess he didn't want his brothers to be jealous or anything.

And this lovely picture that my husband so carefully took of me is to show off my ugly Christmas sweater get up.  The picture does not do it justice.  Wait-only burning would do it justice.

More to come later.

We finally go some snow...in the mail that is.

Steven sent us a huge box with our gifts in it for Christmas.  The box was filled with packing peanuts.  When we first opened it I was trying to have the girls help me fill a basket with all the packing peanuts but I quickly realized this was not going to happen, there were just too many and it was impossible so I said "what the heck...have at it" and they did.  NOTE to Uncle Steve, next time save yourself some money and just send a box of packing peanuts and 2 shovels.  We called it snow.

We want to wish you a merry Christmas

Merry Christmas

Temple Lights-the tradition lives on.

The past 2 years we have gone to Salt Lake to see the lights on temple square with my long time friends Tali and Preston.  This year we did it again -only it is getting tougher cause our kids are bigger and don't want to ride in the stroller and it is such a packed place.  Usually we see the lights and eat at Olive Garden but we skipped the eating because Tali just recently had a baby boy Crosby and he was having nothing to do with the eating.  We will resume that next year.  It was wonderful to see our friends and the girls were so excited about all the baby Jesus's they would see.  The lights are so amazing and I love being there are Christmas.

I love this picture.  Have to frame it with "the temple I am going there some day."

The girls watching this cute senior bride and groom in the background.

Greg with the girls and Miles (Tali and Preston's son).

Aren't the lights so spectacular.

The kids in front of a beautiful tree with expressions that speak volumes.

One more look at baby Jesus.

Decorating the Tree

Since we decided to stay home by ourselves for Thanksgiving we decided that we would just use that morning to get our Christmas tree.  The weather was perfect-cut the tree in our t-shirts and long sleeved shirts (that would never happen in Sask.) The girls were excited and it is a really fun tradition.  That evening after we had stuffed ourselves on turkey dinner we decorated and I got the rest of my Christmas decorations out.

Here is our perfect tree and it really is perfect-no trimming, no reshaping.

A tradition-family picture with the tree

Playing in the dirt while dad cuts

A stick-how could we have an outside picture without a stick

I took this picture of Brailie upside down and through my legs

There he is-the tree slayer

Here is the tree with the new tree skirt I made from a table cloth

Brai putting on the star that was Greg's family as a boy

Adding the decorations-she loved this

Allie loved it too but was done after 3 ornaments and wanted to watch more movies.

Baby Jesus at Park

I hear those words about 10 times a day if not more from Brailie, "baby Jesus at park mama".  First we saw the stable set up and the manger but no baby Jesus yet.  We had to walk by daily to see if he was there.  And then on Wed the 23rd he was there and I had two excited girls.  These are pictures from our first visit. 

At first the girls were a bit timid with all the figures around.

Getting closer

Close enough to touch Him now

Allie holding Him which she asked if she could

You can see how excited she was from the look on her face

People in town driving by must wonder if we are vandalizing or what.  I have to say everytime we stop by I am nearly moved to tears at the experience.  The girls speak in a whisper and are so gentle and caring.  We even went another time and took a blanket (which was their idea) and a wipe for the baby.  We took the wipe because he was really dirty.   The girls cleaned him off as well as the other figurines and the sheep and camel.  Allie thought that maybe we needed to take him some diapers because he was a baby but I told her that Mary would take care of that.  It is all things Baby Jesus at our house right now.  The nativity sets are a major hit, we sing songs and read stories and it is all with no prompting on my part.  I feel blessed that they are so excited and enamored with the Savior of the world.  Brailie's Christmas list to Santa reads, "Dora, Diego and baby Jesus."  I am humbled and consider myself taught everyday. 

Christmas Day

Are you ready for this??  Here is the run down of our Christmas day.  First a sneak peak from Christmas eve.  This is what Santa left for Allie- a new cash register which is what she had asked him for. 

 Here is a look at our tree Christmas eve night.

 Greg and I headed out to the garage to blow up this: a ball pit with slide for the girls. 

 It was on clearance at K-mart for $20.00 and I thought it might help us get through the long winter days and then it could go outside in the summer.

 It was a huge hit Christmas morning.  Allie's eyes were as wide as saucers and then she dove right in.  It only came with 50 balls and I thought that would not be enough so I bought an extra bag but we soon found out that was WAY too many balls and we put the extras away. 

She said, "this is perfect, perfect, perfect."  Can't get any better than that.

 Then Allie headed into the living room to test out her little desk and drawing board-also a huge hit.

 Finally Brailie woke up and they played together with the cash register.  Maybe this is terrible but I thought it wasn't necessary for Santa to spend extra money on a gift for Brailie since she wouldn't care and Allie would just take it away from her anyway.  She didn't seem to mind and loved playing with Allie's stuff.

 On to opening stockings.

"Mama-what's this?" (Then a quick chuck over her head and onto the next thing.)

 We had the hardest time convincing Allie to open gifts.  She was thrilled with the cash register and ball pit and didn't want any more.  I told Greg which package to give her and have her open.  It was the $7.00 guitar I had bought.  As you can see she loved it. 

 The girls wanted to play so Greg and I opened our stockings.

Nothing says I love you like Beano.

 And that is pretty much where everything went "to the dogs" as my dad would say.  I had visions of everyone sitting and taking turns opening gifts and loving each one-like it was when I was a child (however I obvisouly can't remember how it was when I was 2 but it must not have been as organized and wonderful as it was when I was older).  Pretty much Allie refused to open anything else and did so only by force.  Brai was into everything (as usual).

Here's Brailie showing off her new boots from Uncle Steve

And her new shirt from Grammy

Here is Allie's gift from Grandma Connie and Grandpa Verle (don't be offended that she looks uninterested-it was the mood of the day).

She liked this new shirt from Uncle Steve

Tractors for Allie and Brailie from Grammy.  They loved these.  After these were opened there was no real hope for anything else, she wanted to play with these and that was that.

Brai opening her gift from Grandma Connie and Grandpa Verle.  I love the booties by the way.

Brailie was a pro at ripping wrapping paper.   That is not surprising since her specialty is shredding (tissues, toilet paper, newspaper, magazines, important papers etc.)

She loves this tea set from Grammy.  Allie does too.  We play "hot chocolates" almost daily.

She figured it out quick.

Allie playing with some Barbies after all was said and done.

 Then it was time to have breakfast-also by force.  We had bacon, and cinnamon pull apart bread (healthy-no, delicous-YES).

The girls played farm which they love.

Then we went and opened the last huge present which was a wagon.  They loved playing on the box until it was assembled and they love playing in it too.

See what I mean.  Allie watched an entire movie in it the next day.

That night for Christmas dinner we had our neighbors and friends the Swalbergs over for supper.  Allie loves their girls and we just truly love all of them.  We had the traditional turkey and fixings.  I made this pie in my tart pie pan Steven bought me last year.  Cool huh?

And now to sneak in a little video or two:
This is of Allie listening to a story book Uncle Steven bought her.  She presses the button and then Uncle Steven reads her the stories.  She LOVES it.

This is Allie singing with her new guitar