Christmas 2016

We decided to stay home for Christmas, partially because we love how relaxed it is to celebrate with just our little family, but also because it's too hard to drive long distances when I'm this pregnant! On Christmas Eve, we cleaned the whole house, put presents under the tree, decorated sugar cookies for Santa, ate ham and potatoes for dinner, then got out new jammies on, reenacted the Nativity with our Little People nativity set, and drove around Ada to look at Christmas lights. Unfortunately, there was so much fog that it was hard to see most of the lights, and the park and Chickasaw lights were half turned off so we didn't get to enjoy the full effect. By the time we got home, Lily was sound asleep and we got the boys into bed.

We had already wrapped all of the presents, so it was nice to have everything done before midnight on Christmas Eve. Before the boys went to bed, I asked them what they thought was a fair time to have to stay in bed until, and Kimball suggested 8:30. We were sold! We set up a gate in the hall way so they could look out into the living room, but it kept Lily from opening everything before we were up.

Waiting to go in the living room

Amazingly, we didn't hear the kids at all until 7:45! We went out and the first gift they saw was the new basketball hoop we got for our family gift. Then it was on to stockings. Lily inhaled all of the Skittles in hers and the boys promptly broke out their dart guns. Then we made them wait while we opened our stockings.

Opening stockings

Reading Santa's letter

 When it was time to open presents, we went youngest to oldest and Lily was adorable. She definitely has opening presents down! She got a cradle for her baby dolls from my parents, as well as a new dress, books, and more toys.

Tucking baby in

Cameron loved the Boogie Board he got from my parents...

When we were putting up our tree, Kimball dropped the first ornament we gave him as a baby and it shattered everywhere. It was a glass nutcracker and he was devastated. I've never seen him so heartbroken and I wanted to just go buy him a new nutcracker right then. But Dale said he needed time to grieve and amazingly found the same nutcracker on eBay. Watching Kimball open it on Christmas morning was priceless!

I got Dale a chainsaw so he can chop/cut/gather wood for our woodburning stove...

Dale got me a Cricut and I've got several projects I'm working up to...though it's a bit of a learning curve.

Before long, it was time to get ready for church. We had it for one hour at 12:00 and it was the perfect way to spend Christmas...celebrating our Savior's birth and taking the Sacrament.

When we got home, we started on our Christmas feast which consisted of pancakes, bacon, sausage, hash browns and eggs. We didn't want to fuss with a turkey and I got to try out the new griddle from my parents. The rest of the day was spent playing with our new toys and being together. It was wonderfully exhausting. Merry Christmas!