Christmas Morning

Oh, Christmas Morning! I think my favorite part of Christmas was opening my eyes and hearing, "Santa Came! He really came!! Look he ate our cookies! And he drank the milk! And look he brought us presents!" It was so fun to listen from bed and hear how excited they were!
So here are some random pictures of Christmas morning. Jorgan was pretty overwhelmed so I paid most of my attention to him as he was opening every piece of candy in sight and trying to lift and carry presents around. I was really proud of the girls being so patient and waiting their turn to open presents.








I think the ultimate present came last of all. Both sets of grandparents helped us buy a trampoline for the kids. They were so excited and spent much of the next 2 days begging us to go outside and play. Unfortunately it has been raining and now snowing since Sunday night. Hopefully it lets up soon so the kids can spend some more time out there!


Merry Christmas!!!

Christmas Eve

I think we have created a new Christmas Eve Tradition! Prime Rib for Dinner!! I've been experimenting with cooking different foods lately. Trying new recipes and new flavors. So for Christmas Eve Dinner I decided to try a Prime Rib Roast. Luckily the butcher at the grocery store told us when the Roasts were going to go on Sale and even gave us suggestions for cooking time. I found a a recipe online for Blackened Cajun Prime Rib that tasted wonderful! We all enjoyed it... except for the fact that it tool longer to cook than planned so dinner was an hour late and the men were getting quite grumpy!
After dinner we bathed the kids... and while in the bathtub Santa dropped off his traditional pajamas! It was fun to watch the kids get a chance to open a present Christmas Eve. Then we performed our Christmas play one more time, read "Twas The Night Before Christmas" and the kids shouted "Hooray" when we finally told them it was time for bed.
What a beautiful day!

Getting Ready for Christmas

I decided that for the whole month of December I would devote all of our Christmas lessons to learning about the Birth of Jesus Christ. I think it was successful because Rachel definitely knows all about when Jesus was born... she never fails to correct us if we say something wrong! So, to prepare for Christmas we practiced a Christmas play. I found a little poem about the birth of Christ online, added primary songs where they fit and the kids put on this little production. I had originally planned on Elizabeth memorizing all her parts and the kids being able to sing the songs on their own... but I had a cold that would not go away for the 2 weeks before Christmas. We still did our play and the kids had a great time, we used the primary songbook CD to help with the songs, since I had lost my voice and couldn't help, and I whispered the words to Elizabeth's parts in her ear. It was really fun to have them practice the play and especially fun to help them learn some new songs. For a couple of the songs I made up hand gestures and Jorgan did those instead of singing. He was pretty cute!


Josh's parents have a recording of the play. If I get it from them, then I will post it too! Until then just enjoy the pictures! This is Rachel and Jacob as Mary and Joseph, then below is Jorgan as an angel, or shepherd, or mostly just wandering child!

Mom! Come Look! I'm Decorating!

This has been Elizabeth's favorite past time lately. Maybe it's because we were just decorating for Christmas. But she'll get out several boxes of toys and line them up all over the fireplace, TV stand, window sill... everywhere. When she's finished she has us come an look at her artistry! She's so fun to have around!

"To Infinity and Beyond!"

This is the kid's new favorite game. They drive their cars/trucks across the fireplace and then sail them through the air screaming "To Infinity and Beyond!" It's really cute to watch them! I love it when the find something fun to do together that doesn't involve fighting!

A Sick Little Man

This week Jorgan has been a bit under the weather. Not quite sure what the problem was, but for several days we couldn't get him to eat much, I had to coerce him into eating ice cream, and he was really grumpy which is completely not like him. One night after he had hardly eaten anything all day and after not napping at all he wouldn't go to sleep at bed time. After letting him cry in bed for about 10 minutes, which he never does either, we got him up figuring he must be starving. The poor little guy was really shaky and just sobbing. We were finally able to get him to take a bite of cheese and then before we knew it he was shoving down everything we gave him. Once he got started we couldn't stop him! This is him taking his first few bites of cheese. It was so cute because he was sobbing and chewing at the same time and he wouldn't let go of me.


Once he was pretty full of cheese, bananas, and milk, he was ready to play. Here he is enjoying his mommy and daddy alone time, walking on the counter and getting into cupboards he usually can't reach. What a cutie!

Putting up the Christmas Tree

We had originally planned on cutting down a tree this year. My dad had a left over tree tag from last year, and they just bought a fake tree this year, so we were going to use the tag and go cut down a tree! Fun, right! Well, except we couldn't figure out when we would have time to actually go cut one... so up with the old fake tree. Next year we are totally making time to cut a tree because at Costco they had fresh pine wreaths and they smelled so good!!!
Anyways, here we are putting up our Christmas decorations!








The next 2 days were spent trying to keep the kids from undecorating and redecorating the tree over and over again. But, alas by the end of the week we have finally gotten over the newness of the tree and it is not being constantly redecorated! Yah! Maybe this week I'll be brave enough to put some presents under the tree... and then maybe not!