Christmas Time is Here

Christmas was so awesome this year!  The best ever, in my opinion.  I loved everything about it.  Of course, like always, it started off with Christmas Eve at Nana and Poppy's house.  Here are most the cousins hanging out in the afternoon...

It's impossible to get a good shot of all of them...

The kids ended up going over to Nana and Poppy's next door neighbor's house to help one of their daughters build a snowman.  Silly kiddos didn't even bring a coat to the party, so they were freezing...

The party was extra large this year because Dan's family was visiting from New Jersey, so they joined in the fun as well...

By mid-afternoon, it was time to start our annual game of Bingo for silly gifts...

At the end of Bingo, my parents had a surprise gift for each of us to open at the same time...

We each got a pair of Christmas socks.  They were so cute and warm.  We all loved them...

Dinner wasn't quite ready at this point, so Ashlee played some Christmas songs on the piano...

While she was playing, we had a visitor stop by...

Yep, Santa visited our Christmas Eve party this year...

He took the time to talk to each of the kids while they sat on his lap (except Ella who was terrified of the jolly ol' elf), and gave them each a cute little stuffed animal...

Here's another example of how you can't get a good picture of all these wild and crazy kiddos.  We're again missing Ella because she wasn't going to get anywhere near this strange guy...

It turns out that Santa is a good friend of Nana and Poppy's, so we were happy he could take a few minutes out of his busiest night of the year to come visit us...

After that, it was time to eat all our favorite Christmas Eve foods...

Next, it was talent show time.  Viv and Ella danced to a Christmas song...

Landon sang a song with his mama's help...

Ashlee and her boys played duets of Christmas songs...

And my boys were able to play some simple Christmas songs this year because they started taking piano lessons from Ashlee back in November.  Connor played "Jingle Bells"...

And Aiden and Cohen did a duet of "Jolly Old Saint Nicholas"...

Then it was time for all us sisters to do our "lovely" annual rendition of  "Jing Jing-a-Ling".  Kristin sang in her British monotone voice, Ashlee sang in her opera voice, and I sand in my baby voice.  I'll just let you imagine how amazing it was.  Our mom loves it, and makes us do it each year.  She's usually crying by the end because she's laughing so hard...

Next, it was time for the cousin present exchange.  The kids draw a cousin's name and then get a present for that cousin. They love it and look forward to it every year...

To finish the night, we read the Christmas story from Luke 2, then had a family prayer, and then headed home to bed so Santa Claus could come.

On Christmas morning, we woke up to a fresh blanket of snow on the ground, making this Christmas a *true* White Christmas...

The kiddos slept in until about 8:00, except Viv who was awake at 6:45 am.  Luckily, we were able to distract her with YouTube videos until the boys woke up later.  Here they are waiting to see what Santa brought them...

Then it was a mad dash downstairs to make sure they hadn't received a piece of coal...

Connor found a note in his stocking that said Santa had to leave his gift in the garage because it was too big...

It's a little hard to see, but there's a go cart over there...

After the kids saw their gifts from Santa, it was time to open presents from Mom and Dad...

Once all the presents had been opened, we ate French Toast Casserole for breakfast.  We also ate some of the grapefruits and oranges that Santa left in our stockings.  Then, later that afternoon, we went back to Nana and Poppy's house to open our presents from them.  We were once again spoiled rotten...

Then we hung out with our cousins...

Then ate leftovers from the Christmas Eve party and played games.  Here we are playing Telestrations...

It's such a fun game, as you can tell by this picture of Ashlee laughing her head off as she plays it...

It was such an amazing Christmas!  Perfect in every way!! I wish I could freeze this Christmas and just replay it every year.  I know there are still many fun Christmases ahead, but I'm beginning to realize I don't have very many more Christmas before my kids start leaving the nest.  They are at perfect ages right now, and I wish I could just freeze them.  Unfortunately, it doesn't work that way.  So, I'm glad I have pictures of this Christmas to remember it for the rest of my life.  --Lindsay

Oh What Fun

We had a great Christmas season.  It was jam-packed full of fun and festive stuff.  Here's a quick peek at some of the things we did.

We decked the halls...

We got together with my family the day after Thanksgiving for what we called Thanksgiving 2.0.  Kristin hadn't been feeling very well on Thanksgiving Day, so she didn't eat much.  So, we got together and ate leftovers...

And the kiddos built some Christmas Legos that Poppy brought with him...

Santa and Mrs. Claus were on my morning show one day...

We found the home that apparently belongs to the Griswold's cousins...

Vivvie had her preschool Christmas program.  She was one of the "pretty dolls" and apparently, they wear big ol' bows on their heads...

Several of the pretty dolls with their big bows...

The pretty dolls doing their part...

Singing and doing the actions to all the songs...

This was the 9th year that I've seen this Christmas program, and I never get bored with it.  It is so cute!  Unfortunately, it's my last year seeing it because my baby moves on to kindergarten next year.  How is that even possible?

We went to our ward Christmas party and had the opportunity to visit with Old Saint Nick...

Santa was having a bit of a wardrobe malfunction with his beard.  He had to keep his cheek to his shoulder or his beard had a bit of an issue.  So funny...

We got several good snowstorms in December.  One plastered snow all over our back door.  Good thing I didn't really want to see out that window anyway...

That same evening, it was still snowing, so we decided to all stay home and watch "Elf" and eat cheese fondue.  It was yummy...

Aiden and Cohen had their Christmas Sing right before Christmas Break.  Here's Aiden and the other 4th Graders.  Aiden is in the front row wearing orange...

Here's Cohen and the 1st Graders...

It was hard to pick out Cohen once all the other kids stood in front of his row.  His head is right above the Santa hat that is near the middle of the picture...

We get huge crowds standing outside our set window on weekends in December.  Everyone is downtown to shop, see the lights at Temple Square, and go ice skating on Gallivan Plaza, so I guess they stop by our windows before heading home.  Is this how the animals at the zoo feel?

We did our annual tradition of taking a trip downtown at Christmastime.  We ate at Old Spaghetti Factory, and then had fun at Trolley Square.  The kids found Santa's sleigh and piled into it.  I guess Connor is supposed to be the reindeer?

We were planning to go see the lights at Temple Square, but none of us really felt like walking around in the bitter cold for an hour, so we just spent some extra time at Trolley Square playing in our favorite stores...

And, to finish off this post, here's a shot of our Christmas tree after the last present had been wrapped...

It was a great Christmas season!  It kept us running from sun up to sun down every day, but it was worth it.  So many fun memories!!  --Lindsay