For the last few years, my husband and I have hosted Christmas Dinner, and done the extended family gift exchange at our house. This year, it ended up being 21 of us, making for quite the crowd. Here my husband passes out the gifts to the grandkids.
We do not judge the hair accessories of men with small daughters.
Merry Christmas to one and all!
Growing up my parents had a tradition of letting us pick one gift to open on Christmas Eve. One year, I opened a camera case, but without the camera! I knew what I was getting, but I was a bit upset not to be able to use the camera that I knew was coming.
My husband didn’t have this tradition and he was worried that the same thing would happen, we didn’t want them to just pick anything from the pile of presents. Then, when my oldest was four, I heard of the tradition of doing pajamas for Christmas Eve. For the last four years I have made my girls pajamas for Christmas Eve and they wear them ALL the time. They usually wear them all day on Christmas. They are very loved, and it makes me happy to make them.
This year though, they had a LOT of pajamas in their drawers. They are overflowing, so I decided to branch out. This year they were looking forward to wearing new pajamas, but were surprised when they opened up their new robes. As my oldest daughter said “now I don’t have to wear a blanket around me when I am cold, I can just put on a robe.” I should have done this years ago.
So here they are on Christmas morning wearing their new robes.
Not everything was homemade, but besides the robes they did get pajama bottoms that matched, but the biggest homemade gift is the one played with the most. A large box full of homemade plush Angry Birds that my friend and I made. She made half and I did half. Each girls got 3 birds, a pig, and two eggs for each girl. They have come up with all sorts of ways to play Angry birds.
Here are a few of the pictures of them with the new Angry birds, before they started the war between birds and pigs.
The Milton library by our house had a gingerbread making day. They put together pre-made paper molds and had the kids put graham crackers around the edges. They had the frosting set out, candy in individual bags, and all the things needed to make houses for up to 70 kids. It was the best attended event I have been to, and I brought my friend Jennifer with her kids for the fun.
Tabatha can’t eat her house, but she graciously said that she would donate it to daddy when he got home from school, so she made it extra special.
Because of food allergies for Tabatha we haven’t done gingerbread houses. Luckily, Olivia doesn’t have any issues and Christina found a really amazing gingerbread house set.
The girls got together and did an amazing job putting together six cute houses.
Grandma helped Audra.
I helped Olivia.
And Christina worked with Claire.
The finished projects were quite impressive.
On our last full day in Colorado, Christina took me and the girls to Jump It UP a great place to get the kinks out of the kids. With all the snow we had been snow bound and now they got to go a bit crazy.
Here Audra is chasing Olivia down the slide head first. The picture is blurry, but this was the only time they went down head first, as it is against the rules to go head first, but it was still fun to watch.
Here Audra, Olivia and Claire are trying to climb a large tall mountain shaped inflatable. I didn’t see a single kid pass the second blue area, but they sure tried.
On one ride they had a trampoline type area where Olivia and Audra had fun bouncing high into the air.
The girls look blurry, but this is the best shot of all three girls on the slide. Olivia is standing while Claire and Audra are still sliding down.
Then after fun jumping, we ended by going to the Denver Temple. A perfect end of the day. The temple was closed but it was a peaceful beautiful drive.
On Sunday we went to church and Audra and Olivia looked so cute in their dresses.
We did a fun afternoon craft I found on Family Fun Magazine.
We made snowman out of marshmallows. Claire’s was a little on the Picasso side.
Olivia was a traditionalist.
The finished Snowman.
Claire got a little bored with the snowman, but I still got a picture of the finished project.
Christina took us to a great food bank for a service project on Saturday morning. The weather was awful and the roads were bad, but we made it anyway. We went to a ward Christmas breakfast then braved the roads to the JeffCo Action Center.
Christina helped AUdra sort veggies while I helped Olivia.
This was the only picture of Olivia, but really she loved helping out.
When we got home Olivia played in the snow again. She had a lot of fun watching Ben shovel the sidewalk, but when she came in she was so cold. She came to the door with this cold little face. Of course, she got some hot cocoa to warm up and we spent the rest of this cold day warming up inside.
From December 1st – 5th Olivia, my mom and I got to visit my sister in Colorado. Just a few pictures show what a joy it was.
Here Olivia and her cousin Audra are playing in the backyard snow.
The next day we visited Littleton and their very nice museum. Audra was at preschool, so Olivia played with Claire all morning.
It was snow covered and cold, but a very sunny day, so it was perfect for walking around the farm at the museum. We didn’t see another soul until the end when a school group arrived.
Every year the girls decorate the tree. This year we were talking and singing, and the last thing I thought of was pictures, until the very end. At the end of the decorating, once all the white lights were up and the ornaments were placed, with each ornaments rightful owner marked on them so they can be remembered, we end with three angels. Here are my angels showing them off.
The large angel is the one that goes on the top, and the smaller two are her helper angels. They are always the last to be put on the tree.
Tabatha is so close to the top of the tree, but not quite tall enough.
No, a stool doesn’t quite reach either.
For at least one more year, it is daddy to the rescue.
Maybe a little crooked, but Tabatha is quite proud of herself.
We love free projects with our beautiful daughters. On November 19th we thought we would do a cute Santa and Sleigh at Lowe’s. I think half of Federal Way had the same idea. Every table was full, and most of the floor was filled with kids making Santa sleighs.
Since we bought the kids tool kits last year, we asked if we could bring the kits home so that they could finish in a quite, and safe environment without us kneeling on the concrete floor. I am so glad we did.
Ken and I worked side by side helping with the hammering
Putting together the kits.
Showing how to hammer safely.
And how to put in the Santa and reindeer. The completed projects are now our first decoration of Christmas.
Tabatha’s almost flew off without her.
