Christmas 2014

It has become tradition for us to go to a movie on Christmas Eve.  This year I went for the first time!  I have always stayed home with the little ones...this year we ALL went!  The little ones are growing up!  We saw Big Hero 6...good movie.

That evening we had our traditional shepherd's dinner in our nativity costumes.  Logan was going to be a wise man during our nativity so he wore his wise man clothing and pretended to be a visiting rich man during our dinner.

After doing our reenactment of the nativity, we got in our new pajamas.

Those are some excited faces!

The kids have been in the tradition of having a slumber party on Christmas Eve...this year they had a great spot picked out for our first Christmas in this house.

Christmas morning came way too early for me!  Sienna was calling down the stairs at 5:59 a.m.  Ryan and I got up and went outside to feed the horses.  Then we went upstairs with the kids said a prayer and sang The First Noel.  Then the fun began!

We spent the day relaxing, playing Wii games, watching movies, eating a yummy ham dinner...and just enjoying the day together. 

Christmas Day 2011

Christmas was on a Sunday this year and we have 8:00 church...we were a little worried about how that was going to work out...but it went fine.  We told the kids they could get up at 6:30 (they used my cell phone to set an alarm!), they had time to look at Santa stuff before we needed to get ready for church.  We only had sacrament meeting today, then we came home, took a few pictures, got back in our pajamas (because it's our tradition to spend Christmas Day in our pajamas!) and enjoyed the rest of our day!

We weren't sure how the day was going to go...with it being Sunday...because there are certain things that we don't do on Sunday...like play the Wii or DSi games, watch T.V. or movies (except for "Sunday" movies), etc.  But the kids never even asked to do those things (even though there were some new Wii games and DSi games and movies)...I was really proud of them.  They kept busy with other gifts including a big cardboard house, new board games, science kits, art kits and we watched the Ten Commandments (one of spiritual gifts from Ryan)  It was a nice day...it made me wish that every Christmas was on a Sunday!

Christmas Eve 2011

It's the Most Wonderful Time of the Year!

We did our annual acting out of the Nativity.  I have been buying some material remnants lately at Joann's...so this year we had more than bathrobes, towels and sheets to dress up in...it was nice! 

As usual, the "wise men" brought pajamas for everyone!  The kids looked so cute and cuddly!

Five for Friday

1.  Our big event this week was Mason's eye surgery.  We went to Phoenix on Monday evening and I was at the hospital with him at 6:00 a.m. on Tuesday morning.  The procedure went well, we have a follow up appointment in a week down in Mesa.  The reason for the surgery?  His right eye wasn't tracking correctly.  The doctor cut a muscle in his eye to (hopefully) correct the problem.  The doctor commented that the muscle was about twice the size that it should have been...so the problem was definitely not going to just go away on it's own! Mason went into the surgery well...thanks to some medication they gave him to help him relax and give him amnesia!  But he woke up in an awful mood!  I was warned that could happen!  He finally calmed down on the way to the hotel.

2.  Corbin slept HORRIBLY in the hotel!  I seriously got 2 hours of sleep that night!  If we have to repeat that surgery (or for anything else) in the near future...one of us will have to go down alone!  He has continued to not sleep well since we got back...which makes for one tired mommy sometimes!

3.  On Friday we finally got our Christmas tree decorated!  It has been a crazy month for us with sick people, snow and the surgery...we just weren't able to do it before now!  We also got the Christmas village set up and Ryan got the outside lights up.  It's beginning to feel like Christmas.

4.  I love the Friend magazine that the church puts out.  Every December they have some kind of a count down to Christmas Advent Activity Calendar.  We are using the one from this year as well as a previous one...and the kids got a Christmas chain with an activity to do each day before Christmas...so we are having fun counting down!

5.  We enjoyed the ward party on Friday evening.  Good food, good company!  The Primary children put on a nativity and Jenessa got to be Mary (her name was drawn out of a hat...because of course, everyone wanted that role!)  Kessiah and Jenessa were able to go to Sis Ipson's house last week and help her with the costumes.

Christmas

Our Annual Gingerbread House

I think this was our 5th annual gingerbread house creation, I'll have to go back and look at pictures to check. Always fun...and a bit chaotic! I did put Logan to bed before we got started, sometimes Sienna and Logan involved in the same activity is just a bit too much! It was fun to have Nana and Papa there to enjoy the activity with us.