Holiday Highlights

Warning: Long post :)

I was cleaning off the camera tonight to get the Christmas pictures off and I found a few extras. So, I thought I'd recap some of the last few days and our holiday activities.

First of all, I started my Christmas shopping in September. I was close to being done by early November. I wanted to take December easy and enjoy the holidays. About a week and a half ago, I started with kidney pains. I spent a good 3-4 days in pain. It wasn't so bad that I had to go to the Doctor, but it definitely wasn't fun. I passed one large and about 3 small stones. Luckily once they passed, I felt just fine.

This week was Little Man's Christmas program, and Big Man's Christmas party at school. It was a fun week with lots of anticipation leading up to Christmas. Christmas Eve we had absolutely NO plans during the day so I spent the day cleaning, doing laundry, and baking. My house was absolutely spotless. It was a good (yet short-lived) feeling. While I was busy at work, Jeff had fun entertaining the kids. They were playing some music and dancing. It was pretty cute.







We spent Christmas Eve night at my parents house. My mom goes all out with party planning. We had a dinner theme of 'Around the World'. Everyone made a dish or two from different countries. After dinner, the kids told how people from that country celebrate Christmas. We played a few games, and did the pinata. We watched a video on the Savior and the kids wrote down one gift for they would give him this coming year. It's always good to remember the real reason of the season along with the other events. The final event of the night was opening gifts. I love watching kids open presents. Every time I would take a picture of Little Princess, she would tip her head and pose. What a nut.

Big Man got a Razor scooter. He was pretty excited when he opened it.
Little Man got lots of guns for Christmas. He was in heaven.
One of Little Princess's favorite gifts was dress-up clothes from her cousin. She wanted to wear them for the rest of the night. She kept saying 'I'm a princess'. I know I'm biased, but she does look like a princess. She's so cute.

We got home from the party right around 8. The kids were exhausted and went to sleep between 8:30-9. We gave them a big pep talk about staying in their bed until 7:00 a.m. I had visions of last year getting up in the 5:00 hour, but the first kid was saw this morning was Big Man. He came up at 7:10. It was so nice. We had to wake up the other two to go open presents.

The theme of this year's gifts for the boys was Legos and guns. They also got a ton of other fun stuff. So much for not spoiling them. Little Princess got a couple of Dora things, a piggy bank, a cleaning set, a tea party set, and other fun girl stuff. They had a great morning playing with toys.

In addition to all the Christmas festivities, the day wouldn't be complete without celebrating Big Man's birthday. We officially celebrate his birthday in the summer, but we try to make a big deal out of it on Christmas as well. I can't believe he's 6. Where has the time gone. I can't believe how much life has changed in the last 6 years since he joined our family. He's such a cute, bright, fun addition to our family. He continually amazes us in so many ways. Happy Birthday Big Man.

Big Man's biggest Christmas wish was for the Battle of Endor Lego set. He's been asking for it for about 6 months now. He didn't care that it was for ages 9 and up and had around 900 pieces. We couldn't resist, so that was his big Christmas gift. Jeff knew that he'd be the one assembling it. He was a good sport, it took several hours today to get it all put together. Here are the results.
Little Princess is at such a fun age. She loves imagining and playing. She got a cute little 'tea set', and this is one of the many 'tea parties' we had this afternoon.
We had a great Christmas. I feel very blessed and fortunate to have such a great family, and such cute kids :) I had a great time spending Christmas with them today.

Just after it started getting dark tonight, our doorbell rang. Little Man opened the door and yelled, 'there's a huge basket'. We brought it inside and read the letter inside the basket. It's called the Traveling Christmas Gift Basket. It was full of fun Christmas stuff, books, videos, games, and treats. The note said that we get to enjoy the basket for a full year, and then next Christmas we give a Traveling Gift Basket to someone else. I'd never heard of anything like this before, and I'm so honored that someone thought of our family. The note that came with the basket said that the purpose was to bring our family closer together by doing things as a family. What a great idea. I look forward to enjoying all the gifts and then paying it forward next year.

I've also been thinking for the last little while about some changes that I'd like to make for the New Year. 2011 is going to be full of LOTS of changes for our family. The biggest of which will be our new addition in 11 short weeks. Here's hoping for a happy, fun, productive year.