Post Christmas Fun

I love the day after Christmas!  The kids were all just SO happy playing with all their new things - I was kept busy opening up packages and getting xbox games started, but it was a fun relaxed day.  I loved finding the kids in their own little quiet places busy with their new toys...

That evening, Emily lined up babysitters for us, and we all went out to see Les Mis at the Studio Movie Grill (my most favorite place to see movies!).  Aaron and Stef were there too - Aaron was too busy looking over the menu to turn and smile ;)

The next evening we had an early New Years Eve party at the Lee's house, since we were going to be in Utah over the actual New Year holiday.  We ate food, played a lot of CatchPhrase and drank plenty of soda...

One of our Christmas gifts was a zoo membership.  It's been a year since we had one - it was fun to go back and we look forward to many many more visits...

And we went out to Five Guys downtown with Ben during his lunch break...

That evening the girls gave me the spa treatment in their bedroom - complete with hand massage and pedicure...

aw... this is the life :)

Christmas 2012

Christmas was amazing this year.  Even though December is busy, Christmas time felt low stress and lovely.  I am truly blessed with an incredible family (parents, siblings, in-laws, etc) and I really felt that this Christmas season.

Our annual Christmas pajama pic - I love this...

I made stockings!!!!  Yay!!! Once upon a time, a long time ago, I made 3 matching stockings with lots and lots of help from Ben's mom.  At the time, Ben and I were newly married with no kids, so I thought I was being rather ambitious to be making 3 stockings.  Well... 10 years later, and I'm 3 stocking short.  I'd been making do over the past years with dollar store stockings to fill in the gaps, but this year I thought enough is enough - I found this cute inspiration for burlap and muslin stockings HERE.  I lined them with cream colored felt on the inside and hand stitched the names on.  I cheated by printing a cute font onto tracing paper and then pinned each name onto the stockings - then I just embroidered straight through the tracing paper, and then just ripped off the scraps at the end.  It worked like magic!

We had Christmas Eve dinner and our final advent with Ben's family and then we drove home and tucked the kids in bed and waited for Santa...

Christmas morning was awesome.  I LOVE watching the kids open their gifts and get so excited to give gifts to each other...

Yay!  New camera!!  I've had my point and shoot camera for 5 years and a couple weeks before Christmas the lens started to not open when I'd turn on the camera... so I was literally opening the lens with my fingers to get it started.  Thanks hubby for my awesome gift!  And miracle of miracles I also got an iphone!  Never had a smart phone till now and I'm so excited about it!!  My favorite part about it is using Instagram!  :)

Jake got lots of boy toys for Christmas...

We had traditional cinnamon rolls for breakfast (homemade by Ben!) and then we hopped in the car to have more Christmas with Ben's family.  When we arrived there was a boat load of gifts!  for reals!...

The adults in the family got a canoe for Christmas!  We tested it out later.  I also got to start testing out my new camera - welcome to the world of higher quality photos, susan...

Canoe!  Conveniently, Ben's parents live in a community with lakes - so we drove the canoe around the corner and took it for a joy ride...

Jake was "too scared" to ride in the canoe - so he hung out on the shore playing with sticks...

After getting back home later that day, the kids delved into all their new toys.  Jake's Hot Wheels were a hit...

Aaron spent Christmas with Stefani and her family in Arizona.  So we got a fun visit from them that evening.  They gave us some wonderful gifts and we skyped with my family in my kitchen.  :)

Merry Christmas!

Counting down to Christmas

 To get in the spirit of Christmas we did our traditional 12 Days of Christmas scriptures and activities.  We skipped a few nights of our envelopes but for the most part it was a very successful countdown with lots of fun memories!

Our neighbor gifts consisted of a craft and a treat - the kids did the little candy cane cards and I did the chocolate peppermint pretzels, then we all helped out in delivering them.  It was a late night...

We played a Christmas game...

We made paper candy canes to decorate our table and drank hot chocolate...

We had friends over for a Monday night advent (singing hymns and reading scriptures about Christ and then eating lots and lots of dessert)...  The kids enjoyed playing the Don't Eat Rudolph game...

We went to Desert Ridge for their "snowfalls" and had the kids do their Christmas shopping for each other (a la Target dollar bins)...

We decorated a gingerbread house and the kids promptly ate it....

Claire busied herself eating a delicious treat from a neighbor while we worked on our gingerbread house...

We went to the Studio Movie Grill and watched Rise of the Guardians...

And we admired the Wizard of Oz themed gingerbread village at the Desert Ridge Marriot...

Other activities this month included class parties!  I went to Emma's and Ben got to go to Becca's.  I'm so glad Ben took a few days off of work the week before Christmas...

Adam and Grandma Dangerfield had a birthday!  We had delicious red and green cake made my Aunt Lacy...

More Advents and family time!...

And we shopped till we dropped!  Shopping for a family of 6 at Christmas time is labor intensive - but it was fun!  Here are a couple of my shopping buddies at the Tanger Outlets taking a break with their soft pretzel bites.  :)