Merry Christmas from Ohio!

I find it saves me time and energy to bathe Carson in the sink plus he enjoys playing with the faucet.

On Matt's first day of Christmas break, we went out to lunch at Taco Bell (the kids fav. fast food) and then headed up to Kirtland to see the 8,000+ nativities they had displayed from all over the world.  It was very impressive.  The nativity above is from Kenya and made out of recycled Coke cans.  The nativity below is from the Philippines and made out of recycled newspaper.

On the second day of Matt's break, we "attempted" to make gingerbread houses.  We normally make candy trains in Arizona, but I was trying to save money and make gingerbread houses instead.  I know now why my sweet mother-in-law had her children make candy trains instead of gingerbread houses.  It's much less frustrating for the child.  When it was all said and done, I probably would have saved money (and many a headache) if I just purchased the more expensive candy train ingredients.  Anyway, lesson learned.  It's candy trains from here on out.

Moving on to Christmas Eve, we let our kids each pick out what  character to act out during the reading of the Luke 2. They even dressed themselves and found their own props. We had a Mary, baby Jesus, an enthusiastic angel, and 1 wiseman. It warmed my heart to watch them.

Giving gifts to the adorable baby Jesus.

Emma and Brady performed some Christmas musical numbers and I played hymns while we caroled.

On Christmas Eve the kids all get a new pair of snuggly warm winter pj's and a digital scrapbook I make on Shutterfly highlighting the past year.  As you can see Carson was most excited by the tag on his jammies. :)

We had our good friend and hometeacher Stacey Miles join us for the evening.  The kids loved going through their new scrapbooks with him.

Every once in awhile I take a self portrait so that I get in a picture for memory sake.

Here we have the Birthday cake for Jesus that Emma made all by herself (homemade frosting and everything).  As we read the Christmas story, the kids place the appropriate pieces of the nativity on the cake.  It's our own little family tradition that seems to really have taken off.  (sidenote - see part of the flowers my husband surprised me with).

Here you have it...what Santa left the kids and the first year we had a family present.  The way Matt presented our family gift was pretty clever...plus now the kids have a whiteboard in the playroom and they've been playing school all week.  Anyway, from left to right you have a Kanani doll for Emma, a remote control helicopter for Brady, a Kit doll for Ellie, and some sensory balls for Carson.

This year we left some of the Birthday cake for Santa instead of cookies and well....he seemed to like it just fine.

Christmas morning (aka 6am).  Before 9:00 church, they were allowed to get their Santa present and empty their stockings.

Oh yeah I guess we let them give their sibling gift (they drew names) and here is Ellie opening her music box from Emma.  See how her Kit doll is helping her.  Kit hasn't left her side with the exception of bath time since Christmas morning.  She sits in Carson's high chair during meal time and everything.  I think it's sweet.  Santa figured this might be the case so he even left a doll nightgown and slippers.  Let's just say Kit is sure enjoying her queen size bed.

Can you see how his sweet little fingers are ripping into his package.  He really got into it.  So fun!

This little guy got bibs and spoons in his stocking.

Round #2 (after church we quickly put our pj's back on) and the kids got to open the 3 gifts Matt and I gave them along with the grandparent gifts. I'd say from all the smiles it was successful.

She's turning into quite the little shopper (sale shopper I should proudly say).  The Justice giftcard was a perfect choice.

Wow the first video game I ever got! Yippee!

Here we have a tutu, a caboodles, and new books!

Holy Cow! A marble track!!!

Studying how to make the perfect playdoh cake.

Here we have an I spy the helicopter picture.  Matt and I took the remote control helicopter for a spin outside when the wind caught it and crashed it into the roof.  It took us quite a bit of searching before I spotted it in our tree.  Thank heavens it still works (Santa may have insisted that the salesman crash it repeatedly in order to convince he/she to make the purchase). It also crash landed into Kit's head...getting the hair wound up in the propellers but we came out of that crash okay too.  Oh the Christmas adventures we had.

I just really liked the little expression on his face here...you can see him thinking...wow this Christmas thing is great.  I can really get into this! haha