Christmas at Home

We had such a wonderful Christmas. On Christmas Eve we got home in time to get dressed for church and do some pictures. We got one cute picture and then asked Lydia for her smiling face and let's just say we ended up with sad face. Anyway- here is our family.

We had such a wonderful Sacrament meeting and heard such incredible music that really brought the spirit of Christ. Right after church the kids were excited to open our Christmas Eve present. We did a little people nativity set and the kids loved it. Lydia especially played with it for hours the next couple of days and had so much fun with it.

Shantel was so awesome making such delicious food. Growing up my mom made a "Christmas Roll" every year on Christmas Eve. This year was Shantel's first time making it by herself (she has helped my mom before) and she did awesome. It turned out amazing. I love the picture with Austin watching her on the counter.

And of course, we made pizza! However, I must say that this year was the best pizza year ever and hopefully a new tradition, Shantel shaped the dough into fun shapes (a Christmas Tree and and Snowman). It made it so festive. Plus the pepperoni pizza was delicious and the chicken alfredo was so incredible. It was so fun to have Lydia and Austin help too. P.S. You can see Shantel in the pictures cleaning the marina sauce off of the snowman when we decided it would be way better to have a white snowman and do an alredo chicken instead of two pepperoni.

The food all turned out very delicious and we had a great night. However, Christmas is a busy time and if you remember, we had a pretty loaded schedule leading up to Christmas. About dinner time Austin was pretty exhausted. We got dinner all set with the pizza and salad and carrots and then asked Lydia and Austin to fold their arms for the prayer. Austin just lost it. If you did not know you would have thought we told him that Santa wasn't coming and there would be no Christmas presents. We were very kind and tried to help him, but he just was too tired. He literally cried for almost 3 hours. Finally Shantel took him into the bath and was able to get him calm and in his bed and asleep. So while it was not the most peaceful Christmas Eve, we were grateful to be home so that we could take care of Austin. The food was still delicious and Lydia had a great time. We read the Christmas story with Lydia and did the other traditions. However, that is why you see 3 cups of frappe, not 4. Lydia found a great spot that she wanted to hang her stocking and then we got her to bed.

We had big plans of a relaxing Christmas Eve watching a movie about Jesus, but with all the things going on and a baby needing attention as well, that did not quite happen- maybe next year! Here was the set up for night.

In the morning the kids (especially Austin's) spirits were Merry and bright. You could tell Austin felt much better. Here they are waiting to go downstairs.

This year we really minimized the candy in the kids stockings. They had a few treats, but really not much, in fact they ate all of it pretty much by the time we left our house. We did some other fun things that they loved which included, new light up toothbrushes, bath color tablets, pez dispensers, tape, bath bubbles etc. The kids loved it and had so much fun. We also did oranges and cut up apples.

After the kids went through the stockings they were so excited to start opening presents and started with the presents they were getting for each other. This was probably my favorite part of the day because they were both so excited for each other to open the present. Lydia got Austin a street sweeper and he loved it. He has been really loving street sweepers. Austin got Lydia a doodle pad. Austin has one of these and Lydia and he always want to play with it at the same time. She was off the walls excited about it.

The first thing Lydia wrote.

We still really struggled with how to deal with Santa this year. While we want the kids to enjoy the tradition, we feel it is important to let them know that Santa is not real, so we can focus on Christ. Something special was that while we were helping Austin, Lydia made a card for each person in the family to put in their stocking. Right before bed, she put a card in Shantel's, Austin's and Caleb's stocking. It was such a kind thing and fun that she could help do it.

The kids had a great time. One of my favorite things is that being at home we could take as long as the kids wanted. We let them open the present, play with it and then when they were ready, they opened the next one. It was so much fun. This year was also a first year of doing code names on presents. Growing up my mom did not want us to guess our presents before we opened them. So she made code names on the presents so we did not know which present was to who. This year we wrapped presents and Lydia was "Candy Cane," Austin was "Jingle Bells," and Caleb was "Snowman."

Shantel was so kind to me this year. She put together 12 months of dates. Each month has an envelope with a creative, fun or interesting date. I am so excited for each month to have such fun dates with Shantel and it was such a great gift.

After opening presents the kids really wanted to go out and try their new sleds. It snowed on Christmas eve, so it was perfect. We got bundled up and went out and made a little sled hill.

Merry Christmas! We had a wonderful Christmas morning. I am grateful for this family of mine.