Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas

Christmas morning came early at our house. I have a confession to make, I was the first one up. I was so excited about what the kids would think and say on Christmas morning that I was up with that excited anticipation at 5! Dallin was the first one up at 6. He was sorely disappointed that he had to wait for everyone to be ready before going downstairs to see if Santa had left him some toys. This was made even harder since Kate decided to sleep in until 7:30!! I played board games with Dallin, read books, helped him get ready, got ready myself, and watched some Land Before Time. It was a terribly loooong wait for a very excited little boy, but he did it!
Christopher went down first to see if Santa had come (and to turn on some Christmas music and get the video camera ready). Sure enough, Santa had been there and eaten his cookies and drank up all his milk. Then the kids raced down the stairs to see what was there. The way things were left, mine and Christopher's stockings and the things for the pets were at the base of the stairs (Dallin and Kate's things were on the opposite side of the room (not so easily seen coming down the stairs). This made for a very sad moment for Dallin (but pretty darn funny for the rest of us) when he came downstairs and thought that Santa had not left him anything. His little face just fell as he looked at the stockings (none of which were his) and kept saying over and over "Santa didn't bring me ANYTHING!? Not anything!?" After several minutes, he finally turned around, saw his things and lit right up. It was so hard not to say anything and wait for him to discover it himself. Christopher got it from the front with the video camera and it is hilarious. I got the video from behind with the camera.
The kids were thrilled with the wonderful gifts Santa had brought them. They were pretty good this year all in all :) Dallin got his Handy Manny toolbench. Here he is with his Santa stash. And Kate got her play kitchen. Here she with her Christmas morning loot. They played and played with the toys. Here is Dallin dressed up as Handy Manny with his new toolbelt set. After a while, they dug through their stockings and uncovered many fun little trinkets and toys (apparently Santa is a big fan of the $store). Here is Kate stuffing her face full of chocolate. It is a good thing that Santa only put a few pieces in there. They were ALL gone in seconds. This girl is a sugar fiend. She has replaced all food groups with sugar....the holidays have not been good for her. I'm afraid the New Year will be a rude awakening. LOL The stockings are so great because they are big and when the kids dig in them, it looks like they are going to get lost in there. LOLSanta even filled stockings for Mommy and Daddy and the pets. Hey...we were REALLY good this year :) The kids enjoyed helping us unpack our stockings tooDallin went through all his presents from Santa quickly and was ready to rip through everything under the tree right away. Kate, on the other hand, was content to play with what Santa had brought and seemed obilvious to the fact that other presents were under the tree. After making Dallin wait for a while, we began opening the gifts under the tree.
Kate got a pop-on princess doll. They are put out by Fisher Price and I love them because the outfits snap on and off so it is easy for little girls to do. And the princess one had her name all over it! lol Dallin got a doctor kit, which had to be used right away since apparently Christopher was "off the chart!" according to Dallin and needed immediate medical attention. Both kids got a fun dressup costume too. At our house, we dress up year round. So they were so excited to get something new and they put it on right away (of course) Dallin got this sweet superman costume with cape. It was a little big, but that means more play time! Kate got a really cute Cinderella dress with "glass slippers" She looks just precious in it and wore it the rest of Christmas day. I have to brag a little bit here and say that I got the entire thing (including the shoes) for $4! I am such an awesome shopper! I love the expression on her face in this picture and how she is admiring her glass slippers. Priceless...and oh so Kate! lol
Both kids got their own copy of the Book of Mormon. So no more fighting over who gets one at family scripture study! YAY! They got a fun Candy Land Castle game from Grandma and Grandpa along with some fun leapfrog toys which they have barely put down!
It was a lot of fun seeing the expressions on everyone's faces when they unwrapped their surprises. We didn't get pictures of all of them....we were really blessed by our friends and family :) This year Christopher and I made it a point to get gifts for each other. Christopher got me something really sweet.
Yep...it's a puppy. I named her Macy. I actually got her a couple of days before Christmas. Anyone who has known me sometime knows I owned dogs earlier in our marriage. I have missed my "Tiny" (50 pounds...lol) terribly and would still search for her. So, Christopher called the landlord and made it happen....I have a dog again. She is a terrier mix (with a bunch of other stuff). Her mom was only 12 pounds pregnant so we are hoping she won't get too big. It seems she will be an average sized dog and I am happy to have her. Also, this year the kids bought presents for Christopher and I and also each other. It was really sweet seeing them practically burst with excitement over picking the perfect gift and wrapping it and then watch them struggling to keep it a secret. They were very proud to give their gifts on Christmas morning. Kate hit it completely out of the park with her gift to Dallin. It was a pretty realistic toy trumpet. You can actually play it. It is plastic even though it looks real, and the price was very nice! Dallin has thanked her repeatedly and she beams and says "yo welcome!" Dallin got daddy his own saw. I was really proud of him because he came up with the idea all by himself. He somehow remembered that last year Christopher had to borrow a saw from the neighbor to cut our Christmas tree and so he wanted to get him his own. He told Christopher a million times "you remember that you had to borrow a saw from a neighbor because you didn't have a saw? I want to tell you what I got you!" I thought he was going to explode. So I am pretty sure that Christopher knew, but he acted surprised and he was definitely touched. Kate got me a star necklace and earring set. I really love stars so this was a great choice for me. I loved how happy she was when she gave it to me and will remember that every time I wear it.
Later in the afternoon, we went to Nana and Papas house for a delicious Christmas dinner and more presents!!! The Old Settlers Ward elders live with my parents and we really enjoy having them around. My kids really love them and the elders are always so wonderful with them. The only downside is how much we inevitably miss them when they transfer out. Here is Elder Lund holding Kate while Christopher was looking for his present.
Yep you read that right....I said "looking for his present". Christopher only got one gift this year so the elders set up a scavenger hunt to stretch out his "special" time. lol Here he is with one of his clues
Looking inside...
Looking outside....
Was it worth it!? Oh YEAH! He ended up with a PS3!!!!!! (with 2 bonus game and a blu-ray!). He was/is one happy boy!
My mom made each grandchild their own quilt this year. So all of her gifts to them were along that "theme". Dallin got Cars. Kate got princesses (and Madison got Dora for inquiring minds). The kids LOVED their quilts. They sleep with them every night. But I was especially surprised by Dallin's reaction.At first he said nothing and set it aside. My mom thought it was a total bust. But within a few minutes he was playing with the ties and sucking his thumb. He wallered all over it saying "blankie! blankie! i love you! i got a new blankie!" He has taken it everywhere with him. It is just precious. He still insists on sleeping with the blue blanket/rag at night along with the new one but it no longer travels which is a blessing for all! Here are the kids playing with their voice changing microphones they got from Uncle MichaelThey totally loved them. (He also got them each 25 for college savings....but when you are 2 and 4, the microphone is waaaay cooler...lol) Thanks Uncle Michael! My mom got each of the grandkids one of the "If You Give..." books with the accompanying animal. I was very surprised about how excited they were. They always enjoy books, but they were just ecstatic about the matching animals (especially Kate who got "If you Give a Cat a Cupcake")Here is Kate packing around her little princess dolls she got from Grandma Faye. They were a homerun big hit! She carried them ALL around with her everywhere (this was quite a challenge because I think there were 10 of them or so...LOL) She packs them all over the house...still, but my favorite is that she sets up little tea parties with them...only each princess sits IN a teacup. Very cute! Also, if you are wondering....yes, Nana and Papa got her a princess nightgown that she had to put on right away.....and YES....she is STILL wearing her regular clothes AND the Cinderella dress underneath it.....and YES...she stayed that way until bedtime. It was a good thing she didn't get even more clothes! LOL
I got some nice things as well. I got my mattress pad and a VERY nice sheet set I wanted. I got a super sweet fruit bowl that I wanted and a couple of other things. I have decided that when you get older your gifts sound so totally lame. I mean tell any kid what I got for Christmas this year and they would look at me like they felt bad for me...LOL, but I was waaaay happy to get it! But the funniest thing I opened was from my Grandma Faye
Ok...so my finger is covering the words a little, but you are probably reading right....it's PREPARATION H! Alright!? It was just what I wanted!! LOL I had a good laugh about this, but really my grandma was just using the box to wrap things in. It was a really nice necklace and some very appreciated cash. Thanks Grandma for the great gifts (and the laughs!). Love ya!
We had a very fun, very busy, and very blessed Christmas and hope all of you had the same. At the end of the day I felt very grateful. Grateful for friends and family. Grateful for our homes and all of the wonderful things we are able to partake of. Grateful for my husband who works hard for us and loves us deeply. Grateful for my children and the magic of Christmas through their eyes, but most grateful for my Savior. It left me feeling like I wanted to be a little better, a little stronger, a little more like Him. I hope you all had a wonderful holiday season and that you keep the spirit of Christ in your hearts always! Merry Christmas!

Happy Christmas Eve

The kids had a wonderful Christmas Eve. They were so excited they could hardly contain themselves. In the morning, we made roll-out cookies for Santa and painted them with edible paint. I also pulled out my leftover Christmas sprinkles and let them just go nuts. (They needed to be used up). Kate used 2 little jars of Christmas sprinkles on 4 cookies....LOL Those suckers were LOADED! At this point in the day I had misplaced my camera, so I don't have photos...but it way way fun and the cookies turned out pretty cute.That evening, we went out to Subway for our annual Subway sandwich dinner. This started waaaaay back when I was a kid. I think it originally started because it was soooo stressful for mom tying up all the loose ends on Christmas Eve to make the awesome Christmases we had. So one year, instead of making dinner, Dad offered to take us to Subway. It worked out so well that we have been doing it ever since. Anyways, we went to the same Subway that we went to last year and THEY REMEMBERED US!!! It was actually the same two ladies working there as last year. LOL I thought they looked familiar. Last year, we overwhelmed them with our group of 10 and explained our tradition. My mom had been around a lot of perfume that day (she is VERY allergic and it can cause seizures) and on our way out she told them "I love you!" They looked at us and we looked at them and laughter erupted. This year, the lady asked my mom if she was going to say good-bye the way she did last year....she said "you only tell us you love us once a year after all" and laughed. And so....we ordered our food and on our way out, mom shouted "I love you!" to the Subway ladies. Aaaahhh a new tradition is born! We took our food home (so they wouldn't have to clean up after us on Christmas Eve 30 minutes before close) and feasted.
After dinner, we went out and looked at Christmas lights. They were really beautiful and we had a great time. I always forget how much this gets me into the Christmas spirit until we do it. This year the most notable was probably ginormous Santa. I have NEVER seen a Santa that big! I wanted to go back and get my camera to take a picture of it, but I didn't think I would be able to find it again since we were winding in and out of neighborhoods. He didn't look inflatable...I don't know what he was made out of, but he was literally 2 stories tall in front of this house. I think that Dallin would have maybe reached his knee (and he is 43 inches tall). I think it really would put the fear into kids if they hadn't been good that year and saw GIANT Santa coming toward their house!
On the way home from viewing neighborhood lights, we assigned parts for the annual reading/acting out of the nativity. This year, Dallin was Joseph. Kate was Mary. Christopher reprised his role as the donkey (hee hee). I was a shepherd with my flock of Little People Animals. Michael and the Elders were the 3 wise men. My mom was the angel, and my dad was the narrator. We then scrambled to find costumes in 10 minutes or less. It is always fun to see what everyone comes up with. The creativity is part of the fun. Unfortunately, my camera died and I only got a few pictures of this, but you can see it is pretty cute.
Finally, we helped the kids wrap their gifts and we sat around the fire in the living room while the kids danced and spun around to Christmas music playing on the stereo. It made me smile to see them so happy. I loved that their little eyes were sparkling and alive with the magic and spirit of Christmas, and I could feel it myself. I remember dancing and spinning in the living room so full of joy I could burst, and it brought those feelings back watching my sweet children on Christmas Eve.

We went home, put out magic reindeer food (oatmeal and glitter) on the front lawn, got the kids ready for bed, and put out cookies for Santa. Each kiddo picked one cookie they made and put it on Santa's plate. Kate then got up to the table and took a bite out of one when no one was watching. It was about this time that Christopher said (not knowing she had done this) "Don't eat Santa's cookies or he will be mad!". Kate had this horrible look on her face of shock and horror. She completely froze. At first I couldn't figure out why (I hadn't seen her do it either), but I looked down at the table in front of her and noticed the cookie with the bite out of it just as her expression melted from horror into a completely heartbroken expression. She teared up and began to just sob with her head in her hands. It really broke my heart! She was so upset. She was sobbing so hard I had to repeat myself several times for her to calm down enough to talk and eventually stop crying. I told her it was ok since she didn't know and helped her pick a new cookie. I assured her Santa wouldn't be mad at her and he would like the new cookie just as much. I then placed her gently back on her chair and told her to go ahead and finish the cookie she started (after all it was Christmas Eve). What a sweet little girl! I sure love my tender hearted sweetpea. Christopher read 'Twas the Night Before Christmas' to the kids and they were quickly tucked and asleep in a matter of minutes (we had intentionally deprived them of naps today...heehee). Then it was just Christopher and I, enjoying Christmas Eve stillness and waiting for Santa! It was a truly wonderful Christmas Eve.

Graham Cracker Construction Company

This year I seemed to not be quite as "with it" as I would have liked for the Christmas holidays. I think that we were passing around colds and whatnot so many things we would normally do during the season were missed. We didn't do letters to Santa or even visit him for that matter. This makes me somewhat sad and I am really going to make an extra effort to make sure that I plan better to not have this happen again (to the extent that planning could have helped.....sickness just happens lol).
But we DID do our annual graham cracker houses! We got together with my mom, Michael, and the missionaries and built our masterpieces! I was very happy that this was not missed. It was really fun this year because the kids had the attention spans to actually stay with a parent and complete building one. They also were more able to say what they wanted and didn't want on their houses so they were a little more "theirs" instead of mine or Christopher's.
Christopher paired up with Dallin to build their house.Dallin especially was pretty good at squeezing the frosting, building walls and deciding where he wanted things put. He was able to do a lot of things independently after he was shown how once or twice. I think he used a whole tube of icing on the 1st story roof of his house....I am not sure why....but I suppose it is his creative perspective. It was really fun to see him working with his dad to build this. He really enjoys his time with Christopher. Here he is with his finished product. I love how proud he looks! He is really growing up. He tells me all the time "I am a big boy now. I can do LOTS of things!"
Kate and I opted to go with the castle theme for the graham cracker house this year (not a big surprise considering her princess infatuation). It turned out pretty good...even if it did completely collapse halfway through....and the towers were too big and heavy. LOL Kate didn't seem to notice and that is what was important. She liked helping me squeeze the frosting. Our biggest accomplishment this year was that we came up with the "castle" theme (which the boys borrowed :) AND we even came up with the drawbridge. I thought it was really quite clever....the boys also "borrowed" this. Kate's favorite part of doing the houses was decorating. She took to it right away and was surprisingly dexterious when it came to placing M&Ms along the seams that she chose. She was focusing so hard that she was pulling a "Michael Jordan" and totally had her tongue sticking out in concentration. I was really surprised when she picked up on that and started doing it ALL ON HER OWN! What a smartie! I really enjoyed working with her. Here she is with the finished product. You can't see it really well in the picture, but we also had chocolate bears jumping rope and marshmallow trees!
Some sampling was done and houses rose and fell, but a good time was had by all! I really love traditions!

Happy Thanksgiving

Yes....you read that correctly. It is Christmas Eve and I am wishing a Happy Thanksgiving. LOL Actually, I am just doing our Thanksgiving post. We had a wonderful one!
We were able to spend Christmas with Christopher's parents this year which was really fun. We went over and joined my entire family plust the missionaries who are staying with my parents. It was a huge group. I think we were up to 14 this year!
Grandma Kellogg made Kate and Maddie the cutest little pilgrim girl hats. They were REALLY darling.
Here is a view from the back. Also you can see Kate's totally awesome french braids I did (sort of...this was before the haircut)....and the rockin pumpkin bow I made her. She made them from a large sheet of white paper, some string, and a brad. Honestly, I think that woman could spin gold from straw. They were so cute and the girls loved wearing them (despite the fact Kate was looking onery in the picture....she was busy being jealous of Maddie...sigh). She had also brought some Thanksgiving party hats-a pilgrim boy one and a turkey/indian one. Dallin opted to wear the pilgrim boy one and looked just darling. Grandma found lots of ways to make things special!
We had a huge feast at Nana and Papa's house with everyone there. It was really cool to sit at the loooong table with so many people we loved and have such good food and company. Here is the view from one side of the table Here is the view from the other side of the table.
I had to laugh at my two very different children though. Dallin got the turkey leg and he just went after it like he had never seen food (anyone who has seen him eat knows this is not all that unusual...he also really loves chicken legs so he was in heaven) Anyways, here he is looking like a caveman and eating everything with his hands as fast as he can and Kate is sitting next to him...first insisting that she spread her napkin neatly underneath her place setting and then she ate very daintily with her silverware. It just cracks me up sometimes how they can be so different and be side by side. I went to take a picture of it....but Dallin got self conscious and decided to spread his napkin to....and use silverware....at least while the camera was out. LOL
After dinner, we enjoyed chatting and planning Black Friday shopping strategies, but the biggest event was when the kids went into the backyard and discovered........the new tire swing!!!! They were sooo excited and surprised. Papa had talked about getting one and they really wanted it bad! This one is super cute because it is shaped like a horse with stirrups and everything. The kids loved swinging and spinning. Honestly, I don't know how they walked a straight line and didn't throw up. They had a super fun time, and I just felt so happy just seeing the looks on their little faces. I was very thankful for such a wonderful family!