Christmas in Colorado, 2021

 For the first time since Christmas 2018, all of the Bundy siblings were together once again! My parents rented two condos in Pagosa Springs. 

Christmas 2020

 We got home from Albuquerque on the 23rd of December. We unpacked the van and started doing laundry. On the 24th, we set up Dale's early Christmas present...an inflatable t-rex!

Christmas 2019

This year we spent Christmas at home and it was wonderful. The kids were all old enough that we could put presents under the tree as they got wrapped, and not even Becca tried to unwrap them!

Christmas 2018

My parents ended up renting a condo in Pagosa Springs, CO for the week of Christmas. It was the first time all of the Bundy siblings and our kids have been together in over 3 years!

Christmas 2017

 

We spent Christmas at home. The boys got out of school on the 19th, so we had several days of Christmas break to get through before we could celebrate, and it was just shy of torture for the boys...Kimball said he wished he could have been in school longer to make the time pass faster.

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

Christmas 2015

It had been 8 years since we spent Christmas with the Rex side of the family, so we made the trek to Utah this year.

We left on the 22nd and drove to Albuquerque that night. My mom managed to squeeze in some family pictures while we were there.

December 2014

December was full of the usual holiday festivities and the normal life happenings. It was still warm enough for Lily and me to walk Kimball to the bus stop sometimes and go on our morning walk afterwards.

We made gingerbread houses as a family.

Kimball got to march in the AR (Advanced Reading?) parade at school.

We saw Santa at Home Depot. The boys were very confused since Santa had a grey beard.

Dale, Lily and I got to go to the work Christmas party. It was a fun party with good food, photo booth, photo scavenger hunt, dirty Santa, and good company. Lily was the best behaved baby anyone had ever seen (and the cutest little Santa).

Lily turned 5 months old!

Kimball was a reindeer in his school play. He was Donner, and in the play, Santa and the reindeer went to Branson, Missourri to put on a show to raise funds for Christmas. "That's right sir. In fact, back home I'm often referred to as the North Polish prince."

Cameron had several lines in his school Christmas play where Santa gets stuck in a time warp and shows up in prehistoric times where he and his reindeer educate the dinosaurs about Christmas. T-rex even has a change of heart! Cameron did so well that he filled in for another group who was missing their dinosaur due to illness. "Santa Claus thank you for bringing Christmas to us."

Lily wore the cutest Christmas dress to church. The first time she wore it, it only lasted an hour due to diaper drama, but she got to wear it a few more times.

We went to see the lights at Wintersmith Park. We were hoping to ride their little train, but it wasn't running :(. Instead we walked a mile around the lake and Dale carried Lily the whole way.

Santa was at the library and had a white beard this time! There were tons of fun Christmas crafts to do.

We celebrated Christmas at home and went to New Mexico for New Year's.

Christmas 2014

We have fallen in love with staying home for Christmas. It is so nice to be able to wake up Christmas morning in our own home and be able to move through the day at a pace that works for our family.

Lily on Christmas Eve in Judy's Christmas jammies

On Christmas Eve, Dale got off work at noon and we were able to spend the rest of the day as a family. Kimball insisted that Santa needed no-bake cookies so we made those. We read the birth story of Jesus. The boys sprinkled reindeer food...Kimball sprinkled his all over the roof. That night, Kimball had the hardest time falling asleep. Once the kids were all asleep, we were able to get out the rest of the presents. We got Cameron a bike and thankfully followed the advice of one of Dale's associates to assemble it before Christmas Eve. It took way too long to put together and we were glad to have it done days before!

Lily opening her stocking

The boys woke up around 6:30, but since we had put up a baby gate in the hall, all they could do was try to peek into the living room until we got up. We let them open stockings and then ate breakfast (Dale's oatmeal). Then we Skyped Dale's parents who are on a mission in Boston. This was a little torturous for the boys who couldn't help eying the presents under the tree so we said goodbye to Grandma & Grandpa and started opening gifts.

Santa brought the boys the components to make marshmallow guns. Poor Duke doesn't seem to know whether to be excited or terrified because he gets to eat the marshmallows at the cost of being shot at.

Reading the notes from Santa

I have the hardest time surprising Dale with gifts...he usually doesn't even have to touch the wrapped gift to guess what it is. This year, I completely surprised him with a train set. He had to set it up as soon as possible, and it now resides on our tv table where he can play with it frequently (we'll see how long Lily lets this setup remain!).

I got a remote for my camera which has proven to be very useful and fun. We got to test it out that day for family pictures :). 

Christmas 2013

After spending the last 3 Christmas' in NM, Dale put his foot down and insisted we stay home this year for Christmas. It was one of my favorite Christmas's for our little family. On Christmas Eve, we brought a New Mexico tradition to our home and set out luminarias (paper lunch sacks with sand and lit candles in them)...

 On Christmas morning the boys slept until 7:something at which time we pulled them into our bedroom and talked to them about the meaning of Christmas. We also got to tell them that Heavenly Father gave us a wonderful present this year...a new baby! It was so much fun to see our boys' faces light up when we told them they get to be big brothers.

The boys got to open the presents Santa left under their little tree in their bedroom and we moved into the living room. Opening presents was so calm and relaxed. The boys would open a toy, play with it for a while, then we would move on without having to worry about rushing off somewhere or losing the toys in wrapping paper. Kimball and Cameron are very into Transformers right now and they got a lot of them from us which they play with daily (I always worry about investing in toys that won't be enjoyed!). They also got a new game, books, a Peanuts nativity from my aunt, a play castle, lincoln logs, pirate goodies and more.

We got to spend Christmas dinner with a family in our ward and then we got to come home and enjoy the rest of Christmas as a family. The boys are old enough to understand a great deal about Christmas, but they are definitely still little boys with limited attention spans ;). It was a magical Christmas to be remembered for sure!

Christmas in Albuquerque

This year we decided to surprise Judy's family in Albuquerque...we showed up on Christmas Eve and it was hilarious watching everyone's reactions! Grandma couldn't process why there were little kids in her house and then her eyes and mouth got huge when she realized who those little kids were :). It was a lot of crazy, crowded, loud fun.

Sprinkling Reindeer food

K kept exclaiming stuff like "This is the bestest Christmas ever!" and I felt the same...holidays are so much more fun now that we have kids old enough to enjoy and appreciate them. I made matching dinosaur jammies for Dale, K & C and have yet to get a picture of them all together but K is wearing them in the pic above.

Santa brought our boys a garbage truck and a fire truck and these vehicles are very popular right now.

 K even wrote out on my gift who it was for and from...this mama's heart was proud!

 All in all, we had a blast! Dale & I got to go on a double date to Sweet Tomatoes and Hinkle with my brother and his wife. We had a fun afternoon of mini golf, go-karts, and laser tag without taking a single picture...

Santa

Our ward Christmas party was this last Friday and we had a special visitor...SANTA! Poor guy got practically mobbed by all the kids, but both of my boys were finally willing to sit on Santa's lap.

When asked what he wanted for Christmas, K said he wanted candy canes...sweet deal for Santa! K was happy as a cucumber as soon as he got off Santa's lap because candy canes just happened to be Santa's little gift to all the kids :).

C sat on Santa's lap long enough to realize that Santa wasn't going to open his candy cane for him, but he sat long enough for me to snap a quick picture.

When we go anywhere that has a picture of Santa, ie every aisle of WalMart, C starts screaming "Oh, oh oh Santa...nother Santa!" I just love the fact that as my boys grow they understand more and more...it brings more joy and excitement to the holidays :).

Christmas Break

For Christmas we went to Albuquerque with my (Judy's) family. It was the first time all of my siblings have been in one place in almost 4 years because two of my brothers had overlapping missions. This was the first time my youngest brother got to meet Cameron and we all had fun despite drama ensuing from so many people being in one space for so long :)

Opening presents was a blast. Cameron got the gist right away and both boys played happily with their treasures for hours...Uncles had fun tackling, tickling and doing everything silly they possibly could with our boys...Our boys even enjoyed the car mat I made for them...And we went sledding before departing the Land of Enchantment.On our way home we stopped in TX for a day to spend time with our most favorite Ferrell's in the world! Kimball and Cameron even got to walk the poor innocent dogs who had the blessing of becoming acquainted with our boys...The holidays were wonderful and it's nice to be back in our own home and beds. We can't wait to see what 2011 brings!

Christmas

As seen in one of our previous posts, we had a wonderfully white Christmas. Every time I opened the blinds I felt like I had been put in another state...it was just so weird seeing so much snow but I loved it.

Christmas morning Kimball decided to sleep in. The night before he was so concerned about Santa getting his milk and cookies that he couldn't fall asleep until after 11:00! Cameron was going nuts just sitting and waiting with so many fun things to explore:

Since Cameron couldn't be contained anymore and had taken to unwrapping the presents, we woke Kimball up at 8:30. Here's a picture of our sweet Christmas corner:

Here's an up-close picture of the stockings I made for our boys this year...it was exhausting because my machine is being obnoxious but I was pretty proud of how they turned out.

Cameron actually teared at his wrapping paper, but once the first gift was open, both boys just wanted to play with that, and Kimball didn't want to put in the effort to unwrap his gifts, so it took quite a while to get through them. I had thought about storing them away for a while until he would care more, but I couldn't stand losing all of my closet space again! Both boys are in the pjs they got on Christmas Eve which is a tradition I have always dreamed of having and hope to continue...sadly I got the wrong size pjs for both Dale and myself :(

For Christmas dinner, we went to Dale's brother's in-laws and had a good time. The food was delicious and we played Rook afterwards. I was on Greg's team and we won in a last ditch effort coming from 275 points behind, with Dale and our nephew less than 50 points away from the winning total. We shot the moon and got 300 points to win it all, and it was glorious! Dale was not too pleased about the final result, being the serious Rook player he is :)

This year, Kimball was so excited about Santa but when Santa came to our ward party, Kimball was terrified of him and wouldn't go near him. Every time we asked Kimball what happened on Christmas, he would grin and exclaim "Jesus born Christmas day...and Santa!" We didn't intend for Santa to become so central, but I think for a 2 1/2 year old, it's pretty impressive that he was so excited to tell everyone about Jesus.