Christmas 2011

While everyone is at church and the baby is a sleep, I thought i better take this chance to write about our Christmas. We had my parents here this year for christmas, which was a big help. They were here for the week before Christmas and stayed until Christmas day. My kids love when grandma and grandpa come to visit! And so do I!


We did fun things all week, like make and decorate christmas cookies, arts and crafts and of course decorate gingerbread houses.


Christmas Eve night, grandpa and Chris took the kids to the park while my mom and I got dinner ready. Here is my new Christmas place settings (that I got for my birthday). I love it! We had have, scalloped potatoes, rolls, fruit salad and broccoli. It was all very yummy and fairly simple!

Then we had our Christmas Eve "program". We watched the church's special Christmas story videos each night that week and on Christmas eve we watched the video that put them all together. It was really a great tradition I think we will start. A way to remind the kids each night about Christ leading up to Christmas Eve. We also read the nativity story and let the kids use a nativity set to act out what we were reading. Then we went to the piano and sang Christmas songs. Then we had a special surprise visitor come to our house.


While we were singing, there was a knock at the door. Hannah went to answer it and she about died when she saw Santa standing there. The kids were so excited, jumping up and down. "It's Santa", they kept saying over and over again. They were so excited and happy. Santa gave them each a candy cane and a present (a robot) that the kids just loved! It really was a great moment.


Then we went upstairs and the kids opened their Christmas pajamas. We set out the cookies, carrots and milk for Santa and his reindeer and left their notes for santa by the plate of goodies. Then it was off to bed!

That is when we got started. We had a lot to do. Chris ended up going to bed at 4:30 am. That just tells you what kind of Christmas we had. Lots to do and lots of fun!




Christmas morning. The kids got up about 8:00 am (I think). And the real fun began. Jake couldn't stop opening presents. He was a maniac. If he couldn't open his presents, he would go and find someone else's to open. He wasn't about to wait his turn and it became a bit of a struggle. But he did love his Toy Story Figurine set that kept him busy for a while. And of course the candy.

The girls loved their big dollhouse they got and a lot of arts and crafts items. Mom loved her new Cameo Silhouette and IPhone 4S. Dad got a laptop (so he can start a project he has been wanted to do for some time now) and I frame his Craig Olsen canvas that now hangs proudly at the top of our stairs. All in all it was a great Christmas and now it is time to recover and clean up!