Christmas

Christmas morning was magical as always. The kids were excited about their surprises from Santa. Grandpa and Carter set up a camera to try to catch Santa and He dropped his hat right over the camera so it blocked everything! Maybe next year Carter!

Rylee was ecstatic with her pink balance bike.

 Bri loved her new tent

 Carter has been begging for heeleys for years and was super stoked about them! Mollie got an easy bake oven that I guess I didn't get a picture of.

 Stockings were next!














Santa was even good to G&G Reed!

 Everyones loot!

 I was way excited for my instapot!

 After gifts, we had a yummy cinnamon roll christmas tree breakfast!

 Here's one from Christmas eve that wouldnt fit in the book. Grandma read the kids the nativity story from the bible while they got to act it out with the little people.

 The day after christmas, me and the kids stuck around for a few extra days. We went to see the movie Ferdinand in the theater. It was so cute and the kids loved it!

 One of the games we got for Christmas was Watch Your Mouth. We stayed up one night playing it with the kids. It made for some really good laughs. look at those teeth!

 Chheeessse!!

 The next day to kill some time we went to Twin Falls to see the Sorensons. It was so good to see Jenna and catch up for a bit. We didn't stay long because we were trying to beat a storm but I'm glad we made the trip.

 I love how our kids can just pick up where they left off and have a blast playing together!

 Once the craziness was over Chad and I got to head to the temple and it was so neat to come out of the temple and see the lights still on all around. It was beautiful! It may become a tradition!

All in all, we had a wonderful Christmas season and I'm so glad we could spend it with family. It was a little hard setting all of our traditions aside and make the sacrifice to go to Idaho but, again, I'm glad we did it for the memories. I've realized this year that people aren't around forever and we need to make the most of the time we have and not be selfish with our time. We are blessed and so grateful to our God who made this Christmas and every christmas possible through blessing our family financially to giving us his Son as a sacrifice. Merry Christmas!

Christmas with Grandma

And we're off! We ended up taking 2 cars to get all our stuff and gifts to grandmas! But I'm glad we did it. One of my very favorite christmas memories was christmas at their home. I'm so glad I have that memory. It made it seem even more magical. And while we probably won't do that very often, I'm glad they will have this memory. 

 Everyone was home but Tony. They were in Mexico. Everyone worked together to make it a wonderful weekend.

 Since we knew it was my mom's first christmas with both of her parents gone, we decided to incorporate some italian traditions into our celebration. I attempted this new dessert....Strufolli! It was ok..but not incredible.

 Jordan and Adam came up with some games to play.

 You had to hold a spaghetti noodle in your mouth and put a penne noodle on and it and carry it to the other end of the room and drop it in a bowl.

 The kids loved it!

 Then we opened gifts and there was alot of people in one room with a lot of gifts! The girls got Moana dolls.

 All the kids went together and bought a blanket for mom with all the pictures from grandpas house she took. It was a really sweet gift and I think she liked it!

 And a Moana wig for Bri and a cute dress for Ry.

 The fam on Christmas eve sunday

 Christmas Eve we went to church and came home and had a nice dinner. While the others packed to leave we settled in for the weekend. That evening we let the kids open their christmas eve gifts!

 This year they included BLANKETS with pjs!

 And we always do a game on christmas eve as a tradition and this year it was a Just Dance XBOX game. They danced the evening away in their new pjs.

When it was time to calm down, Dad read the Night Before Christmas Story and Grandma read from the Bible and let the kids act out the nativity with the little people. We also listened to recordings of Grandpa DeGiulio read the Night Before Christmas. A VERY special memory. Stay tuned for Christmas morning!

Surprises

The day before we left a few surprises showed up! Since we were traveling, we didn't want to take the big gifts with us. chad spent many hours in the garage building Carter a lego table! I thought it turned out so great and will be a fun inheritance to keep in our family. 

 Mollie asked for a computer chair that spins. So that was my project. I actually repainted it and reupholstered it and it turned out really cute!

 And then, there was a knock on the door! A snowboard had been delivered from Santa for Chad!!

 He was pretty surprised I think!

 The saddest thing happened durring all of this though....I didn't explain to her that just Carter and Mollie had big gifts, so she was crushed when she didn't have a gift to open! The video of it is so sad! So i dug through our bags of gifts that were already packed to find her a gift to open!

 she perked right up when it was a BARBIE with pets!

We sure love our kiddos and love seeing them light up when they are given gifts! Bring on Christmas!