The Rest of Christmas

(Backdated for archiving purposes. Written January 3rd, 2012)

This was my Christmas miracle! A picture of all three of my lovelies with a good smile that I managed to get on Christmas Eve. 

We went to our Christmas eve service, then to Ross and Lori's to celebrate Bailey's 3rd birthday. When we got back we let the kids do their stocking and open a gift.

And when "The children were nestled all snug in their beds,

while visions of sugar plums danced in their heads" 

We excitedly loaded underneath the tree...

The kids each got a bike and a couple of small things to open.

 Gotta love that wild bed head!

 For the record, this girl picked out her helmet alll on her own at Target one day. There was no question in her mind, that was the only one she wanted! I must say, I don't think she could have made a better choice ;-)

 Test run in the living room.

 And giving them a go outside.

 Hannah Grace loved it and is catching on really quickly. The big kids got "glide bikes". Which after doing some research, I was totally sold on the concept.

 He may have been more excited about drinking out of his water bottle than anything else.

If Raskullz is looking for a poster child, look no farther, ha.

After our wonderful, quiet morning we headed to grandma and grandpa Braithwait's and had ourselves a great time, as expected!

I guess we decided to give a cousin pick another go...eh...

 And one with Gigi-

 Then we got real brave and made use of the self timer....

 Wow can't ask for much closer to perfect!! (aside from the fact that it looks like you could pop my head off and play a mean game of basketball with it! I made Ryan promise me the person in this picture looks nothing like me... but that's beside the point... ;-) A great pic, none the less.

 Ready, set, open!!!!

 I'm including these cute ones for you, Lori!

Hope you and yours had a really great Christmas and we are looking forward to another year full of God's mercies anew!

Pre-Christmas Week Events

 I suppose I ought to get my Christmas recaps rolling. Lets rewind a bit to before Christmas. The week my mom was still here, the kids had their school Christmas program. I tried to get some pics of them together before running out the door =)

 The program came through on its guaranteed "chuckle over the cuteness" factor.

Even Bailey had her moves down pat.

  It's funny. I have said before, it's odd to me how I know Bennett got my dimples, but for some reason, they just aren't real obvious on him. Well at the program that night, even from all those rows back, those bad boys were all you could see!

 Both kids got pics with their super sweet and awesome teachers!

A few random snippets from the rest of that week-

 I managed to get this cute pic on a girls little shopping outting with Hannah Grace and Nina.

 Sadie tattooed herself in Christmas stickers. (I think she had some help with that one- note hands in bottom left corner =)

Ryan and I managed to sneak a looong overdue date night while my mom watched the kids. They put together a gingerbread train.

And Wednesday before Christmas "Gigi" (Ryan's grandma) made it into town. We had them all for dinner on Thursday.

 The kids got a bed time story from Gigi, while the guys put together the kids Christmas gift from Uncle Ross and Aunt Lori. After a quality control test run from the dads, the kids were able to play on their new game table =)

 For a few minutes atleast..... ;-)

(Notice the cheering squad)

And, that pretty much brings us up to Christmas Eve and Day....

Walking in A Winter Wonderland

My parents were in town last weekend (my mom through the week). It was great to have a Christmas-time visit from them and Saturday night we made another trip to the Alpine Village. It's going to be a sad thing when the day quickly comes that they are too old to enjoy these things like they do now. 

 They were anxiously waiting on daddy to go in. 

 And then, they stepped through those gym doors into their own magical winter wonderland. 

 I initially had the thought I didn't even consider that Sadie would maybe be to young to go into the workshops and do the activities, but man, the volunteers were awesome and so good with helping her, she did everything and loved it all!

 We somehow missed the puppet show last year, so that was a new addition for us and the kids were very entertained.

 Sadie didn't want to leave the reindeer food workshop. She just kept digging in there and dumping into her bag. I literally had to drag her outta there (luckily not kicking and screaming). Oh yeah, and the cookie decorating? Well, lets just say not many of those chocolate chips ever made it to her cookie.

 That pain in the rear fake snow always seems to be the main attraction. They loved it and I loved trying to get  all those flecks of plastic out of their hair, ears, shoes, and everything in between.

 Hannah Grace was to no surprise, very meticulous and precise with all her crafting endeavors. She was always the last one out of the workshop after much toiling over her creations.

 She was in amazement over the shepherd holding the baby lamb. The guy did a great job with it, even I had to remind myself it wasn't a real lamb =)

 When I look at Sadie's pic from last year in the snowman, I really can't believe it and how a year has changed her!!!

 When we got back home that night, the kids opened their presents from Nina and Papa.

Wednesday night was their preschool Christmas concert. 

To not go too extreme on the picture overload I suppose I will save that for another post....