Christmas and stuff

Whew, it's been a crazy month. Here is a quick long winded and picture loaded recap of our Christmas preparations and celebrations. Enjoy.

Visiting Santa

Jaydin was so excited to visit Santa this year. I was a little worried that Easton would scream since he doesn't really like strangers lately. But he just sat and grinned while Jaydin asked Santa for a hula hoop and a jump rope and a truck for her brother. She had written him a letter and we were going to mail it but she wanted to give it to him personally. She was so dang much fun this year!

Ogden's Christmas Village

We always like going to Christmas Village to see the lights and look at all the little houses. So we decided to swing by one night while we were up in Ogden. It was COLD, but we had fun. Of course, Easton was bundled in his stroller so he slept the whole time, but Jaydin loved it.

Here's 3/4 of our family. I prefer to take the pictures rather than be in them :)

Temple Square

Temple Square is one of my favorite Christmas traditions. The lights are always so pretty and there's just such a great feeling there. A great reminder of what Christmas is all about. Again, it was really cold, but we bundled up and had a great time. Jaydin didn't want to leave Baby Jesus because she was so worried about him being cold :)

Us and our blurry child. The other one was asleep all snug in the stroller....again!

We had a sweet lady offer to take our picture in front of the Christ statue but people have a hard time working my camera, so we were all cut off haha!

Gingerbread House

We let Jaydin decorate the gingerbread house all by herself this year. She wanted me to help spread the icing on the roof and she did the rest. Of course most of the candy got eaten before it made it onto the house, but it turned out great! Easton supervised the process from his exersaucer.

Technological Family Party

This past year, almost half of Brady's family moved away. His brother and his wife moved to California and his sister and her family moved to the Netherlands. So through the miracle of technology we were able to coordinate 6 families in 3 time zones and have Christmas all together. We hooked a laptop with a webcam up to the big TV so we could all see, then did a video conference call with the other families and opened presents together. It was so much fun and great to have everyone in the same "room" together.

Christmas Craftiness

This was my attempt to keep Jaydin busy one day when she was driving me nuts. We made paper plate santas.  There is a face in there somewhere, but she got a little bored and colored over it.  I just thought this was really cute :) She is really getting into making "projects" lately. I took her to the store the other day to get her own glue stick and safety scissors and she was in heaven!

I Spy bag.....

I made this I spy bag for the kids for Christmas.  Sacrament meeting lifesaver! It keeps Jaydin entertained for almost 5 minutes, which is pretty dang good.  And it was super easy to make too.

Then I made these fun little balls from a pattern I found online. I put a jingle bell in each one. Easton loves his!  (His is the black and white one, Jaydin's is the red one).  These came together really fast too.  I made them in an evening when I was taking a break from sewing the playhouse together. And speaking of the playhouse.....

It's made to fit over a card table. So it can be folded up and put away! Exactly what we need for our small living quarters.

There are flowers to pick.

And apples to pick...

and put in the basket.

They have already received some mail for the mailbox!

Jaydin absolutely loves it! (Pretend you can't see how crooked my Santa's sewing is in this picture, ok?)

The kids having a pajama party in the playhouse with their Pillow Pets from Grandma.

This was absolutely worth my stress, blood, sweat and tears! It took almost a month to complete (since my kids don't nap I had to work on it after they went to bed) but it was TOTALLY worth it.  There were a few more details I was going to add but ran out of time. I may add to it eventually but it's fine for now, they both love it!

Christmas Morning

Christmas morning was so much fun this year. I woke up early and made sure everything in the living room was ready and the lights and Christmas music were on, then I got in the shower. Jaydin woke up just as I was finishing so she went and woke Brady and Easton up.

They checked out the playhouse first, then the rest of the stuff Santa left.

Then they opened presents from Mom and Dad and each other. We let them play for a little bit then had to get ready to go see both of the grandparents. We hung out at their places for a little while, played, and ate a bunch of food. Then we came home and just hung out for the rest of the evening.

New Year's Eve

I didn't take any pictures of New Year's Eve because we are such party animals I forgot. Our evening started out with a pizza picnic in our living room while we watched Up.  That was over around 8:30 so we counted down the New Year with the kids and sent them to bed.  Then Brady and I watched some more movies.  We were in the middle of a movie and we heard some fireworks going off outside and realized it was midnight. So we said Happy New Year, finished the movie, and went to bed. Yep, we're party animals.

My Big Sunbeam

This has nothing to do with our holidays but I had to post this anyway. Jaydin went into Sunbeams last week! I can't believe she is old enough for that. I had a harder time than she did. Here she is on her way to Sunbeams in her new dress she got from Nana for Christmas.

And to everyone for whom I didn't have an address, here is our Christmas card.

Also, I have been thinking about this for a while and I think I've finally decided to make this blog private. So if you'd like an invite, leave me your email address.  I really hate to do this because private blogs drive me nuts, but it just needs to be done.  Even if you read this and have never said hi or whatever, feel free to give me your email address and I'll send you an invitation...don't be shy!