Christmas

I've told myself I can't blog about new baby until I update a few posts. So here they go.

Bryan's 24 Days of Christmas
Bryan and I didn't really have things we wanted for Christmas this year, so I decided his "gift" would be something little every day for 24 days. Every day he'd flip a card over and it would have something I loved about him, a Christmas activity, or a small gift. It was really fun to do for him!

Bryan's Christmas

CHRISTMAS
We decided very last minute that we would spend Christmas at my parents house.  We had decided to spend Christmas at home until I realized that only my two youngest sisters were going to be at my parents, and they only got to spend part of Christmas day because they had to drive back to Dallas to work the next day. Everyone needs little kids around them at Christmas! So my sweet and pleasing husband helped me get everything together to drive out to East Texas for about 5 days.  It was glorious!

Christine invited the kids to come over and make sugar cookies and gingerbread houses/train. They loved it!!!

Even Bryan got in on the fun. P.S. I love Benjamin's apron!

Melanie, the queen of all things gingerbread, helped me with the train.

And Benjamin loved putting candy on the house!

Jamie just being cute at my parents house.

My sister Melanie was giving her daughter a bunny for Christmas and it got to stay at my parents house until Christmas Eve...which translates into Jamie getting to play with a bunny for a few days!

Christmas Eve is always fun...we opened pajamas and then Santa came by the house to visit and my other sisters and their kids came over and it was a mad house and made me miss my other siblings terribly! I love when my mom's house is a mad house. It just feels like home! True to form, my kids were terrified of Santa. My parents both got footy pajamas-which will always be the forever favorite moment of this Christmas!

We all got BYU-I shirts, on account of Bryan starting the online Pathway Program from BYU-I.

My parents and their footy pajamas. AKA Foxy and Shark Boy

Jamie only slightly scared of Santa....

Until she became totally terrified!

This might be my favorite picture from the whole Christmas season! Jamie played hard every day we were there. And I just loved the fact that she walked over to her Dad and he picked her up and within seconds was totally out! This Daddy loves his little girl!!!

The kids were especially cute Christmas morning. I could have just gotten them one present each and they would have been in heaven. They'd open a present and want to play with it and could care less about any other present. We would have to convince them to put that toy down and see what else they got. I love the simplicity this Christmas brought.

Jamie was the youngest so she got to put the baby in the manager.

And then Benjamin needed a turn to make sure it was done correctly.

Jamie's favorite gift: a stroller for her babies.

Benjamin's favorite gift: a nerf gun that is by far the best tiny nerf gun I've ever seen!

Christmas Day-Evening we went to Christine's house, who wanted to host a big Christmas dinner. As always, the food was wonderful, and the company was delightful. She had bought bingo and tons of prizes for us and after dinner we all sat around and played countless games. Just before we started to eat it started to snow...a Texas Christmas miracle. It snowed the rest of the evening into the early morning. It was beautiful to wake up to a silent and white morning the day after Christmas.

Looking out the back window at my parents house.

After Christmas we stayed and played for another 2 days and then we came back to our house, where we had just a bit of snow left.