Christmas 2011

Christmas was absolutely perfect this year. Christmas is my favorite holiday/time of year/thing to celebrate/reason for living...you get it.

Every year, as the kids get older, it just keeps getting better and better because not only can they appreciate why we celebrate Christmas and can get themselves in the spirit, they also appreciate the traditions we've started and I think they're pretty close to loving Christmas as much as I do {almost}!

But I have to say...I think this year has been the best Christmas of all since Bobby and I have been married because we got to spend it with my family at our house!! Bobby always has to work either right before (like christmas eve) or right after Christmas so the past several years we've just done Christmas with us and the kids (which we have begun to really enjoy as well!) and headed down to St. George to be with my family the week after Christmas for Kylee's birthday.

But this year, since Amanda would not be able to get enough days before or after Christmas off of work to go down to St. George the family (my mom, dad, amanda and alena) decided to come up north and celebrate with us so Amanda could have family to be with-especially for her FIRST Christmas home from the mission!

The couple days we had together before Christmas were spent going to see a movie (Arthur Christmas-surprisingly cute!!), playing games, lots and lots of eating (which I am NOW regretting-ugh!), making gingerbread houses using graham crackers-do NOT recommend this ha ha!-and lots of listening and dancing to Josh Groban's Christmas CD (LOOOOOVE this-it was my early Christmas present to myself :) and it's quite possibly the only Christmas thing I'm still having withdrawals over not having.)

We decided mom's was the winner!










Little mishap with the cookies and milk for santa...


...all was well though because the kids got him a new plate. They were pretty adamant that Santa get his treats!


Chrismtas morning the kids woke up about 7:30 and we headed out to do presents before our 10:00 am Sacrament meeting service. Kylee was a little overwhelmed by all the stuff going on in the living room I think, so she sorta hung back and watched Tyler before diving in herself.


Santa brought Kylee an art easel and paper which both the kids have LOVED using! they don't use the chalkboard side ever, but they love to pull the paper down and use all the art supplies Grandma got them for Christmas-glitter glue, markers, crayons, pencils, fuzzy pom poms, pipe cleaners, etc-to make some pretty amazing stuff :).




Santa brought Tyler a leap frog video game which both the kids have also had fun playing with.


Santa always fills their stockings with fun little knick-knacks they love...gum, silly bandz, fruit, candy, etc.


Amanda and Alena opening their stockings...




This year Tyler got his first Book of Mormon! Now that he's beginning to read, and is responsible enough to take scriptures to church, we got him his own set of scriptures (which was actually totally at his request with no prompting from us!). He feels SO grown up carrying his scriptures to church and when we read at night he has to have his scriptures in front of him open to the page we're reading. Kylee got a couple Book of Mormon figures, but she is extremely jealous of Tyler's scriptures and they fight over who gets to hold them almost every night so we might have to get her a set of her own before next Christmas :)


Tyler's favorite gifts this year were this Spiderman webshooter from Bobby and I and his Batcave/car/man lego set from his Uncle Mark (not pictured because he opened that present the night before when we skyped with Bobby's family)


After presents and a yummy quiche breakfast (thanks momma!), we headed out to church. Our ward only held Sacrament meeting and when we came home we had zero luck getting any pictures. ha ha! Kylee is usually my eye roller, hang head down, turn her back to me kind of picture taker and the ONE time Tyler refuses to get pictures taken Kylee is all cheesy smiles and loves. Of Course!!




My HANDSOME boys!!


Oh wait there she is. There's my real Kylee.


And we'll go ahead and call that a wrap before anybody gets hurt.


The highlight of the day for everybody though was talking to TY!!!! I haven't been home for the past couple mother's days or Christmas's when he has got to call home, so this was my first time talking to him in almost 2 years!! (he comes home in less than 10 weeks!) He sounded SO great and is doing so well! Can't wait to hear all his fun stories when he comes home in March!!!

The next couple days we hung out, played with toys, went and saw some Elk in the freezing cold, painted nails and danced to some more of my man Groban.






A couple days after Christmas we headed down to Provo to meet Alisa, Skyler, Nate and Bailey who were on their way home to St. George from having been in Bountiful. We met up at chili's for lunch and then spent the whole afternoon at Amanda's apartment opening more presents and hanging out.

Alisa and Amanda gave Kylee her birthday presents since they wouldn't get to be there on her actual birthday. Alisa gave her tw0 princess barbies-Cinderella and Belle which she has played with non stop! Barbies is her absolute favorite thing in the world right now and she plays all day long with them! Amanda got her a new baby doll (which she was in desperate need of since her old baby doll is disgusting!) which she loves to take care of. If she's not playing with her barbies, she's playing babies!




Nate got Tyler Iron Man which was THE perfect gift for him! He has loved action figures for the last year and always has one-or two-in his hand at all times. He took this Ironman to show-n-tell with him his first day back to pre-school!


The sisters did a gift exchange as well and I had Amanda. Apparently from this picture we can see that she was SUPER excited about her new body spray and lotion from Victoria Secret! (sorry for all the very poor quality pictures from the day...next time I'll remember to be in charge of the camera :) )


I guess this was the only picture our camera-man got of my gift from sweet Alena! I love the beautiful necklace and bracelet she got me and wore it to church the very next Sunday!


Just hanging out...




That night we got to go visit a WONDERFULLY sweet family that Amanda is working with to teach them English. They wanted to meet us and make us Hot Tamales for dinner and Oh. My. Gosh!!! They were soooooo good! She made a *HOT* batch and a mild one and I have to say...I pride myself on being able to eat some pretty spicy/hot things but I could not eat more than one of her hot ones! ha ha! The two older girls were SO SO SO kind to our kids and even though Kylee was much younger than them they wanted to play with her and Kylee loved all the attention!


After dinner we headed back to Logan and I spent the next day-all 24 hours of it :) - cleaning, ha ha! But it was SOOO worth it! Ahhhh. So satisfied. So happy. So in love.

I would have to say...