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.

Walker Family Christmas Party

We got up to Morgan on the 22nd. We tried to get up there pretty early- but as is typically, getting out the door took a while and we did not get up there until around lunch time. However, we did manage to beat everyone else. We spent the 22nd eating good food, chatting and hanging out and even managed to play some games including Whatzit. Whatzit is such a funny game. It is probably from the 80's, early 90's at the latest. You have to solve clues and puzzles like this. 

So the top left, is a square meal. Bottom right is fish out of water (Lochlomond is a pond). Bottom left is painless operation (Shantel had to google the answer.) And the top right- we have no idea, if you figure it out, let us know. Some puzzles are pretty easy- but honestly- most of them are super hard. Partly, because some of these phrases are...well from the 80's when most of us were tiny or not born yet. It has grown into probably the favorite Walker family game and get played frequently. In fact, I would almost guarantee it has been played more in the last 3 years than in the previous 30. 

Anyway, the rest of the Walker Clan tricked in on the 22nd. Matt and Jacob and I actually stayed up super late chatting that night. 

The next day it was time for the Walker Cup. This has grown into a steadily more serious and important event. We won the first year, the Haderlie's won once and Scott and Jake won last year in the debut year of the trophy. This year, everyone was supposed to bring ideas for the games. We had lots of ideas and debate, but ended up with the following categories:

Gingerbread house building: Submitted by Shantel. This was probably the highlight of the day, everyone loved it and had a great time.

Trivial pursuit: Matt's idea and a huge hit.

Foosball: The Walker Cup classic.

Random stay on top game on the computer: 2nd appearance as a Walker Cup event. 

Pass the Pigs: The final event. 

Matt was also insistent that we have an opening ceremonies this year. So we announced each team as they entered the family room and even had olympic music and a torch. 

First up was the gingerbread houses. I honestly did not know how much work everyone would put in, but everyone was very serious and took a lot of time to make sure the houses were perfect. 

Matt and Brooklyn building their house. 

Grandpa Walker drove down to visit and he spent a long time helping Lydia build her gingerbread house. He just sat and let her put it together and did the frosting for her.

Scott and Jake- you can tell they are very serious.

Austin adding some nerds to his roof.

 Jenna working hard.

 Picture of the group.

Melissa and Blake even needed the glue gun.

Great picture of everyone.

Lydia and Grandpa Great with their final project.

Here are all of the final projects. They were incredible. We decided that you voted for your top 3 in order, you can't vote for yourself to determine the winner. We also decided that you had to give a presentation about your house. Shantel and I were up first, but had literally 0 time to prepare since it was decided to do presentation about 3 seconds before. We gave an awesome presentation on our "Christmas Cottage."

The Christmas Cottage by David and Shantel (Team Peapod). Look at the Christmas wreath that Shantel did, it was amazing. Also, the Christmas tree was awesome too. My touch was using the coconut on top as snow. Also, the log fire place is pretty sweet.

The other submissions from left to right were: Santa's Vacation (by Melissa and Blake), Christmas in Suburbia (by Matt and Brooklyn) complete with Rudolph and Santa, Big Ben (by Scott and Jake), Christmas in the City (by Jenna and Kevin) complete with a dinosaur destroying the skyscraper, and finally ours the Christmas Cottage. 

Your winner was....Santas vacation. Melissa and Blake did such a great job. Shantel and I ended up in second place.

In the afternoon we also did Trivial pursuit. However, Matt as the 2000's editions which is really fun because it is stuff we know, or that is at least related to our time period. We had so much fun (and also took 2nd place).

Next competition: Foosball. Jake and Scott dominated this competition.

Later we opened some Christmas presents for people who would not be there on Christmas and wanted to see others open presents to or from each other.

Also- we did some pretty great food. For lunch we did 10 minute tostadas (so good). For dinner we actually ordered Panda, which everyone (besides me) loved. In case it has not made it into this blog yet, Chinese food is not my favorite, but Shantel really loves it.

Then we finished our competitions. Melissa and Blake won the stay on top. That meant the competition came down to pass the pigs with everyone super close on points. Shantel and I ended up winning with the most points and it put us on top of the whole competition as the 2017 Walker cup champions. Here is the ceremony with the tied silver medalist teams as well.

All in all, it was honestly one of the most enjoyable times we've had at the Walker house which is saying a lot. Most of the pictures our from the Walker cup events, and those were awesome, but there were tons of other things that made it so fun: Shantel getting to spend time with her mom and sisters, everyone just chatting and hanging out, eating so much delicious food (summer sausage and all sorts of treats) and just being together. We are so fortunate to have such great family and we love to spend time with them. They are the kind of people who are genuinely funny and make you feel better just being around them. We drove home the morning of Christmas Eve to make it back for church and just felt so full of joy and happiness from spending time with the Walker clan.

Here are a few other fun pictures from the 2 days.

Lydia building a bear with Melissa and Blake from a build a bear kit they brought for her and Camille.

This darling boy and his mom. He was so good and so happy to just sit and play or eat while we did so many things with family. Also- the kids did so so so good. We did some fun things with them, but they also were great to play on their own while we did some of the family competitions.

Finally, here are Melissa and Matthew building an awesome fort for the kids. They were so nice and spent so much time running around and playing with them and building them forts.

The first Walker Family Christmas party was so much fun. Merry Christmas.