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Sunday, February 12, 2012

Christmas

First item of business on Christmas morning was making sure that Santa got his milk and cookies. He sure did, and he must have liked them because he sure left these kids some nice gifts. They were a tad worried since they knew that the Elf had been watching all month long... :)



Every year the kids love it when I take them shopping to get gifts for each other. It's usually pretty cute, because they pick the most random things for each other. This year Rachel got a stuffed monkey from Bailey and really liked it. :)


Bailey and Rachel both asked for a Baby Alive this year, and happily, they both got one. Who doesn't love feeding a baby doll and changing its greeny poop diapers?? The good thing is that the "food" only lasts so long and then it's just bottles of water.


I am also happy to report that Matt got yet another version of Monopoly this year. He's been the world's biggest Monopoly fan since he was seriously like 4 years old.





The ONE good thing about having 1:30 Church time last year was that we had a fun, full Christmas morning before we had to get ready for Church. It was actually a perfect way to spend Christmas afternoon. Our ward had a nice program and we were so happy to have Grandpa with us.


What a perfect Christmas!!

Holidays

Perhaps this post should really be called, "A quick recap of Christmas stuff in a few pictures."
As always, the holiday came and went far too quickly. We had a fantastic Christmas filled with friends and family.
We made our annual trek down to Temple Square to see the Christmas lights. Always amazing.



We also had our Family Christmas party at my brother's house. So much fun!


My brother in law read a Cajun version of the Night Before Christmas.


I really don't know how much Bailey understood with the Cajun words and accent :), but she was seriously laughing her head off!


My cute dad would not be too pleased if he knew I took this picture -- and then posted it! You've got to check out his drink, though. It's kind of hard to see, but there is ice in his punch and it's shaped like dentures. Awesome, huh?! I'm not really certain how it all started, but years ago someone started a tradition? No, more like a friendly competition? Not sure what to call it, but we try to find the most unusual gifts we can and then regift them to each other. We often forget who has which gift, and then they pop back up when you least expect it. There is a humming bird figurine, a plastic mold to make a trout-shaped ice centerpiece, etc. (Shhhhh, don't tell, but I think I still have the Hotdogger hiding in the garage waiting to surprise the next birthday girl or boy..)
So, my sister totally won some notariety this year when she found an ice mold that makes denture shaped ice and gave it to my brother for his b-day. Sweet find!


A few days before Christmas, we met Steve's brother and his cute family for dinner. Buffet with awesome cousins -- my kids were in heaven!



Steve's dad had come from Arizona to visit us all for Christmas (yay!), so both of Steve's folks joined us for dinner.

Rachel's Kindergarten class did a super fun activity in the month of December to help them learn basic mapping skills. They made a big Gingerbread man in class one day for a treat, but when they sent him to the cafeteria to be baked, he escaped and ran away. During the whole month they tracked his travels and adventures. (All of us families had been informed ahead of time and had requested help from our family and friends from all over the globe. They sent postcards detailing their "Gingerbread Man sightings.") It was so cool. Right before the holiday break, they received some postcards saying he'd been seen locally, so they set a gingerbread man trap and caught him right back in their classroom.
This is a picture of the map and postcards that had been sent from literally all over the world.



On Christmas Eve my sister and her family came here to join us for our traditional Christmas Eve fiesta. We stuffed ourselves with amazing Mexican food and played all evening.


I'm not sure what they were scheming, but I love this cute little jammied cousin huddle. :)


Rachel and Bailey put our the magic reindeer food and all of the kids put our cookies and milk for Santa.


Elf on the Shelf


We started a fun new tradition this year - Elf on the Shelf. We put in a special order and this super cute guy came to us from the North Pole... by way of Amazon.com.  Every morning when the kids woke up, they got to search for where our elf had hidden during the night.  Sometimes they found him on a shelf or perched high on top of furniture, but other times the girls found that he'd been a little michevous during the night.


One morning he was hanging from the ceiling fan and had made snow angels out of flour.


Another day they found him on top of the refrigerator having a marshmellow snowball fight with some other Christmas friends.



One night he had been busy making paper snowflakes.



The girls laughed their little heads off  (Bailey was even a little freaked out, to be honest) when they found that the elf had gotten into the clean laundry basket and decorated the tree with unmentionables.


 Another night he enjoyed a little entertainment.



This was another gut-buster. Funny little guy. :)


We made play-doh one evening and he helped himself after we all went to bed.


Our little elf had to return back to the North Pole to report to Santa on Christmas Eve day.  When we woke up on his last morning, we found his Nice and Naughty list.


It was a fun month having our visitor from the North Pole and the kids are really excited about looking for him again next year.