White Christmas

The kids got up pretty early on Christmas morning.  They were excited.  We were all wearing our special pajama pants at one point, but we had an amazing number of bathroom accidents this morning.  Chalk it up to Christmas excitement!

 

It snowed during the night, maybe only an inch or two, but it made for a very cozy Christmas morning.

Santa must have been hungry.  He ate ALL his cookies.  Matthew kept telling me how disappointed he was that last year Santa left a part of a cookie on the plate, uneaten.  So he was happy that Santa ate everything this year.  No cookie parts left behind!

 The kids checked out their stockings while everyone else woke up

 Grant found some Pop Rocks in his stocking

 Anna found some goodies in there too

 I think he was looking at a little Transformer here

 Before we opened presents we ate breakfast

On the menu, same as last year, cinnamon rolls, German pancakes and fruit salad

Finally the gift opening got underway.  John was still asleep at the beginning so Grant got to go first.  We went youngest to oldest at the beginning and then it just turned into a free for all.

 Anna got a special Lego set from Daddy

Grant opened a Little People Pirate Ship first and then didn't want to open or look at anything else.  He really liked it...I guess that's good.

 Here's Matthew with an excavator Lego set from Daddy

 And his Leap Pad

And Anna with a Crayola Light Designer toy. 

Scott was able to skype with us during part of the unwrapping, which was great.  It was a bit chaotic, but so nice to be able to sort of have him with us.  And he didn't have to open any of the non-rage-free packaging either.  Lucky!!

A little ride-on-Bullseye for Johnny (yes, Johnny finally woke up and joined our Christmas morning fun).

He even got to take a little ride on Bullseye!

We had a lovely Christmas morning!!  Merry Christmas everyone!

Twas the Night Before Christmas

The excitement was running high this Christmas Eve.  Grandma and Grandpa are with us and snow is forecast so it has the makings of a very lovely holiday.  If only Scott were here it would be perfect.  :)  Anna was especially excited for our day-before-the-big-day fun.

For Christmas Eve dinner we had a bunch of munchies. Chips, dips, crackers and cheese, fruits and some Texas Caviar.

 We did some baking too.  Peanut butter blossoms and spritz cookies.

Anna was in charge of sprinkles.  :)

Grant brought his trains (he calls them "choo") to the table.  We usually have a "no toys at the dinner table" rule but made an exception for our casual Christmas Eve

 

Making caramel corn

Matthew is bracing himself for a loud sound

We had a special family night with the nativity story from the scriptures and some songs to go along with the story.  Here is Grant getting dressed up for the program.

 Matthew was Joseph, a shepherd and a wiseman

 The excitement got to be a bit too much for some of us

Anna was going to be Mary but was having a great sadness when the time came, so Grant stood in for her as Mary.

Grant was very cute and sweet holding the baby and he liked wearing the costume.  He did such a great job that Anna decided she would like to be Mary again and came back to claim her spot in the program.

Grant wasn't that happy about giving up the baby.  We thought he was a bit like Horton in Horton Hatches the Egg.  Poor Grant.  Matthew was kind of mad about all the commotion between Anna and Grant.  We got through it though.

 So Anna eventually had a good time being Mary

She also played the role of the angel that appeared to the shepherds.  We sang Angels We Have Heard on High during that part of the program and Anna sang very good "Glorias"

 After our little program the kids opened a special present from Grandma and Grandpa Guptill.

 They were excited!

 Even John could hold his

Grant hasn't figured out what to do with wrapped presents yet, which has kept all our presents under the tree very safe this year.  When he got the gift, he brought it over to me and said, "open?"  He hasn't figured out that he has the power to open the wrapped gifts...very easily.  He'll figure that out tomorrow.

 Matthew shows off his gift - Christmas jammie pants made by Grandma Guptill
Thank you Ma2 and Pa2!!  They all fit and looked so cute!

I tried John's on over the sleeper he was wearing.  Somehow they got taken off him soon after this picture which turned out to be very lucky since he had a major blow out a few minutes later.  Christmas jammies are still clean!!  It's a Christmas miracle!

 Anna and Matthew

I don't know why she wanted to have jammie bottoms on her head too.

And Grant

At this point in the night, Grant had about had it.  I mean he did have a dramatic fight over a baby doll and got upstaged in the Christmas program.  His pajamas looked great though and fit him.  Notice he still has those trains.

And I forgot to take a picture of the cookie plate for Santa but here was one of the notes the kids wrote him...this is just the outside envelope.  The letter for Santa was sealed up, not for mommies to read.  :)   We had a nice Christmas Eve and as we were heading to bed snow was just starting to fall.  We'll have to wait and see what Christmas morning brings.

In the Christmas Spirit

We had a lot of Christmas fun over the past month or so.   Here are a few pictures from our Christmas adventures. Matthew and Anna helped put together our stocking advent garland.  We added a few candies in each stocking and numbered the clothespins that hold them up. 

 

Nice and easy.

 

 Matthew with his Lego advent calendar  There is a little door in the box for each day and inside a little Lego item to put together and once you get them all together they make a little Lego scene.  Fun.  Anna had a playmobil one that was similar.

 I think that's a Lego chainsaw he's holding.

 The kids left out their shoes on December 5th for Sinterklaas

It looks like Sinterklaas left some Lego (and Hello Kitty) minifigures in their shoes!

 A live Christmas tree came as a gift for my parents - thanks Aunt Janet! The kids were enthralled.

 Making gingerbread men

And decorating them

 Good job guys

Now the eating part.

 Yum!

I was in charge of Anna's preschool winter party this year.  It went well.  Here are the kids making snowflake bead ornaments.

 And decorating some gingerbread men

We did lots of gingerbread this year.

 Our stockings were hung by the chimney with care

Can you see our Elf on the Shelf?

And Anna, our little artist, drew this picture of our fireplace.

I thought she did a good job

 And Matthew's school Christmas party was snowed out so we had one of our own at home.

We did a lot of activities including dressing the kids like Christmas trees.  :)

 Maybe not one of our greatest ideas, but still fun.

And Grandpa came into town on our snow day.  Here he is helping the kids make their popsicle stick Christmas trees.

 Very blingy

And then there was the gingerbread house.  My mom gave us some fun gingerbread house cookie cutters and helped us make and bake the house pieces and make the frosting.  The kids had a lot of fun assembling and decorating it.

 Grant helped by keeping tabs on all the runaway candies.

It's a tough job but...you know

 They were very serious about their decorating

And in the end it looked great.

At a creche display outside the Denver temple

And all dressed up in their Sunday best.  This was taken a few weeks ago, but this is essentially what they wore to church for the Sunday before Christmas...except red stripe ties instead of blue.  I didn't really get them special Christmas outfits.  I'm just happy when they all have clothes on (yes, I'm looking at you, Grant).  Anyway, it's been a very fun holiday season.  We've made the best of it despite missing Scott.  More Christmas excitement to come!