Christmas

Merry Christmas!

The pictures say it all. The magic of Christmas through the eyes of a child.

With all the fun the dinner was burned. Not true, Troy smoked a turkey and roast for our Christmas Day dinner. It was awesome!

Christmas Eve

We had a wonderful week which lead us up to Christmas Eve. A few days before Christmas Eve we packed up the car and headed south 9 hours to my sister's family to spend the holiday. The drive was great, our little man did just fine. He is such a good traveler even on a long haul trip like this one.

Once we arrived we got settled in for a long winter's nap. Nope not quite, it was more like we settled in and ate and played for days on end. Lots of cooking and keeping up with my sister's 4 boys belly's. Little Oli kept saying. "Can I have a cookie?" it didn't matter what time of day it was. And the answer is always yes when you see those big bright eyes looking up at you. A few trips to the grocery store was always eventful picking up last minuet items.

Christmas eve was so much fun. Of course a few of us needed out naps during the day so we could keep up with all the excitement. About 4pm the party started. Plates of food was brought out to the table. Cookies, and relish tray with appetizers. It was quite the spread. The kids played games and the little man tried to keep up with everyone.
Here is Mary, Joseph and baby Jesus
That evening we all ran around the house grabbing what we could find to dress up for the nativity.

Here we all are as a family. I love that Troy is the angel. But he was the one taking the picture,

Oli was the Christmas spider.

After we opened the traditional one present on Christmas eve which ends up being the jamies. Here are a few of us in our Christmas PJ's.

vA tradition on my brother in law family is eating ruebens on Christmas eve. We love it and have started it as well. YUM!

We had to skype our family around the world. We were lucky to talk with Gran and Pappa in China and our family in Colorado. We tried others but they were not online.

Once the kids where all nestled in their beds we had a visit from Santa. He carefully placed the presents around the tree and filled the stockings with care.

I love how the kids spell their mom's name.

First Santa Visit

Where does the month go. I didn't realize it was a week before Christmas and my little man had not met the big man yet, you know who I am talking about. That's right, Santa Clause. I could not wait for him to meet Santa and see how he would react. We got to the Magical Snow Palace and found out that we would need to wait about an hour and half to see the big man in red. We thought about it and decided that we would do it. So we waited, and waited. We took pictures while standing in line. We chatted to the other parents and kids waiting along with us. The time was not so bad. Our little man did a great job waiting.
Then it was our turn, but just before we got to see the man himself, we got to go inside the snow globe and had snow coming down on us. We saw the video's of animals that live in the arctic.
Then it was our little mans turn. I walked up to Santa and put him on his knee. He cuddled right up to Santa and just stared at him. He smiled and giggled and could not turn away from him. It was hard to get a picture as he just wanted to look at Santa. I think even though he can't speak he felt the magic of Santa.

Merry Christmas!

Christmas Lights

Christmas is a beautiful time of year. I just love all the Christmas lights, music, baking, smells and ringing of bells. I love the feeling Christmas brings to my heart. Christmas is a time of giving and sharing. Christmas has become so commercialized that I think the true meaning of Christmas gets lost.

Friday night we went with our neighbors to go see the Christmas lights at the DC Temple. It was our first time going to see the lights at the temple. Our neighbors we found out, had gone to seem them about 6 years ago. We all met up and then carpooled to the temple. Traffic was the usual DC traffic on a Friday evening, it took us much longer then we expected. Once we got there all the stress of traffic flew out the window because the beauty of the lights. The were memorizing. Truly spectacular. We walked around and enjoyed the lights with the music playing in the background.




We then went into the visitor center where they had a creche exhibit that was amazing to see so many nativities from around the world. Little man was happy to get out of the cold.


Our little man loved the lights and was a happy boy on this Christmas adventure. He stayed up way too late that night. Lucky for us he decided to sleep in the next morning.

Candy Season

This is my candy making time of year. Every year since I can remember we make candy. If it is not me making it, it is my parents or siblings taking on the task. Our family is all over the world right now. Some don't have access to chocolate. Can you imagine living in a country that you can't get chocolate or if your can you just cant afford it. Crazy thought right? I am a chocoholic, and could never live in a world without chocolate. HMMMMMM chocolate.....my mouth waters at the thought.

We have a family joke about the Chocolate and water diet this time of year. Because that is all we eat. We don't really bake allot of things, but that is because of the endless trays of chocolates that are made.


This year I am simplifying our live. Adam and I talked about it back in October. I thought about it and ultimately he let me make the choice. I decided that our little man is only little once. He is so much fun to spend time with.


The hours and hours and time and energy that I would normally fix aside for candy making is coming to a halt for this year. I would rather spend it as a family of "3" or just me and little man kicking it together.

To simplify my candy season this year. I am making a few items and found in the family recipe book from my Grandmother Zina is a Maple Nut Candy. So instead of the 60+ boxes of candies that we fill and hand out, this years we are keeping is simple and just enjoying the treats with a few we visit on a monthly basis. If feels odd to not be making chocolates.

I still think I may make one batch just for fun, just so I can eat chocolate and water for a few days. It almost doesn't feel like Christmas without the chocolate and water diet.

First Tooth

Little Man had his first tooth come in on Thanksgiving day. Then a few days later another tooth started to break through. I wish I could get a picture of his tooth grin. They are on the bottom and it is hard to catch him with a grin and camera at the same time. This is our little man at 7 months old.