Christmas Lights

I love seeing Christmas lights, and felt a real disappointment not going to Temple Square. So we hit up the Festival of Lights in Spanish Fork in between Christmas and New Years.   

 

 

 

 

This tree was huge and covered in lights!

 My little man LOVED it this year!

 R loved taking pictures as much as the lights!

 

 A close up of the same tree!

 

It is always fun to enjoy the lights, but also to see the excitement of our kids!

Blast From The Past

 I had seen people recreate old family pictures, and thought that Christmas Day when we were all together would be perfect to do our own! I QUICKLY played around on GIMP(like photoshop) with some of the pictures. Not the best GIMP job by all means, but did make it a little more fun!

 

 

Most of the pictures are of Mindy and Missy because, lets face it, my parents had "first child" syndrome, and there were A LOT more to choose from! :)

 

First I came along...

...then the boys.

 

I wish we could have done a million more,

but my family would only cooperate for so long!

Christmas-FINALLY

(I'm making a statement now to assure you that I know the quality of the pics are BAD, but I just now realized that my camera was set on MACRO for ALL of Christmas. Yes, tears have been shed over this, but I have moved on and can FINALLY post these awful pictures! Just squint!)

 

Christmas traditions are something that Jared and I have tried to keep alive in our own little family. It has been hard trying to pick and choose what parts of both of our childhoods to use. I think we finally have it down. My favorite tradition is from my childhood. We all got to open one present Christmas Eve. Every year we would open a present from my Great Grandma and Grandma which were always new Christmas pajamas.

 

Here are my kids in their new jammies. I still don't think P fully understood what was going to happen in the morning because the kid went right to sleep. R on the other hand took FOREVER to fall asleep.

 

 

Christmas morning

Checking out presents in their Santa Sacks (Jared's tradition)

Tearing in, and finding a remote control car.

R's Christmas consisted of mostly things from the movie Frozen, which she is obsessed with! She was very happy!

Legos. My kids have hit the Lego stage. :(

R using the little ones, and P using the Lego Duplo.

This was R's #1 thing on her Christmas list, and I tell you what. That dress-up caused so much more stress than any mom should have.

 

This little girl was one of the happiest little girls in the world. This dress-up really was worth the stress. It is gorgeous, and we had to bribe her to take it off! For those without kids, its a dress-up of Elsa from the movie Frozen!

P was pretty happy with his new movie Planes!

Hugging yet another stuff animal, and yes still in the Elsa dress!

R made me a calendar at school, and I LOVE it!

New bedding for his "big boy" bed.

Airplanes and helicopters, how appropriate!

Trying out a new game, and still in the dress!

Legos

 

Gorgeous, happy girl, with bed head.

Couldn't make for a more perfect Christmas morning picture! 

We finally got her out of her dress, and got the kids ready to head down to Santaquin for presents with the McSweeneys. 

My kids ready for the presents!

This was FULL of Australian candy.

It was for everyone!

My cute boys!

Then we headed back home for present with the Bolens.

Dad teaching P how to use his new remote control car.

We are a game playing family.

So with everyone together we of course had to play!

One upstairs...

...and one downstairs.

We also had some fun recreating old family photos, but they deserve their own post!

Just you wait!!!

Thanksgiving Times Two

This year Thanksgiving was suppose to be with the McSweeneys, and Christmas with the Bolens. Emma and Ethan were flying out to Australia on Thanksgiving Day. Diane and Jessica were flying out the day after. So this year we did Thanksgiving a day early with the McSweeneys.

 

Eliza and Josh were able to reserve their club house to host the event

 since there are a lot of us!

 

All the couisns, except baby Brighton

 

 See what I mean.

Check out that table!

 After dinner 4 of the cousins changed into their swimming suits,

and took advantage of the pool at the club house!

 

Then, on actual Thanksgiving day, we had with the Bolens.

 

 Aren't we cute? :)

 

 

All the food was amazing at both Thanksgivings.

I couldn't be more thankful to belong to such wonderful families!