Christmas Morning

Christmas Tree

Playing with their first gifts--a kitchen for Whitney and a basketball hoop for Wilson.

Wilson asking Grandpa to open his gift. He took every present that needed opened to Grandpa.

Whitney opening the Belle dress that Grandma K. made for her. She also made her Cinderella and Snow White dresses. Grandpa made her a little mirrored storage stand with hooks for hanging her dresses and box at the bottom for shoes and accessories!

We were all so excited that we actually had to wake the kids up this year! My parents and brother came out around 7 and we got the kids up around 7:30 to start opening presents. They were a little hesitant at first, but then got the hang of things! Wilson loved tearing open the presents! It was really fun to watch them open each present and then stop to play with them. Wilson got lots of cars and Whitney got lots of dress ups. They were spoiled as usual!

After opening presents, we had the family over again around 10 for our annual Christmas brunch. We had monkey bread, eggs, bacon and some leftover ham from Christmas Eve. We were all spoiled again by my mother-in-law!

Later that evening we went to my mother-in-law's for a finger-food dinner and to get our secret Santa gifts ready. We decided not to shop for the adults in the family and donate to a family in need instead.

Christmas Eve

Dining Table

The kids (minus little Ethan) with Santa. Notice just how far away Whitney is...she didn't want anything to do with Santa this year--except for taking a candy cane!

Uncle with Santa

Wilson digging into his fishpond present

Grandpa fishing

We hosted the Christmas Eve celebration at our house this year. We had 12 adults and 5 kids! We started the evening off with dinner of roast, salad, baked potatoes, and rolls. For dessert we had a chocolate cake & pudding trifle with add-ins like toffee bits, hershey kisses & hugs. After dinner, we had the fishpond--a tradition in my mother-in-law's family carried over from Norway. We were then surprised by a visit from Santa! To end the evening, Mike shared a Christmas talk from President Monson about the Spirit of Christmas really being the Spirit of Christ. After everyone left, Whitney and I whipped together some sugar cookies and set them out for Santa with chocolate milk!

Dance Recital

"Take me out to the Ballgame"

Whitney and her good friend Marissa

We had our dance recital on December 21st! It made for kind of a crazy week, but Whitney loved being up on the stage at the Hyart. I am still teaching; I teach Whitney's class and two other classes--2-3rd graders and 3-5th graders. This will probably be the last year I have her in my own class; it's just too hard to listen to Mom! She sure looks cute in her costume and she loves to dance all the time! Our theme was "Seasons" and Whitney got to dance to "Take me out to the Ballgame" and "I put the Zing in Spring". They did a great job!

Little Trees

Wilson with his tree--I think he looks like such a big boy in this picture!

Last year I gave Whitney a little tree that I had and bought a bunch of pink decorations for it; she was more interested in playing with the ornaments last year than keeping the tree decorated, but she was totally into it this year. So, this year I got Wilson a tree too and some little blue and silver ornaments. Amazingly, the two trees stayed completely decorated and the kids didn't bother them at all!

Christmas Outfits

This is the best picture I got of my kids in their Christmas outfits. They were more excited about the candy from their nursery teachers than smiling for the camera.

I saw this dress last year, but could never find it in Whitney's size, so when I saw it online this year I ordered (like back in October). My mom and I found the little suit for Wilson at Penney's when we were shopping the day after Thanksgiving. He looks really cute in it, but it's a 24 month and the pants were huge, but we rolled them up and made it work for church for the week before Christmas.

Graham Cracker Houses

I was watching our friends kids one evening and decided that we would make little graham cracker houses. So, just to make it more interesting, I invited our nieces and nephew over too. We had 8 (8 and under!) little people working on them at once!

Unfortunately, I lack architectural ability, and so our graham cracker houses turned into graham cracker boxes.

Fortunately, the kids really didn't care and were more interested in the bowls of candy and the frosting. Everyone was happy and they actually sat at the counter for quite a while working!

I'll have to work on my skills for next year!!

Hay Ride

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It was definitely cold, but it was more manageable than in the past

The whole gang!

For the past couple of years we have had the opportunity to go on a hay ride with some of our friends here in town. We meet together for soup dinner and then go on the hay ride to look at lights. There were not very many lights this year, but the kids still enjoyed the ride. After the hay ride we warm up with hot chocolate and desserts and let the kids wear themselves out running around playing! I think I figured that we had 18 kids this year (the oldest is only about 8 I think!). We had a great time and are enjoying this as a new holiday tradition!