Christmas, a month late!

I won't waste my time giving excuses and will just get this post up instead. We absolutely LOVED our Christmas vacation at home this year and couldn't have wished for anything more. Spencer and Esther have become such good little buddies lately and their happy spirits are contagious and brought the magic of Christmas to our home. Daniel had a full three weeks off of school and we packed a lot in, getting to projects we've needed to do since moving in, and a lot of relaxing and sleeping in as well. Usually January is my least favorite month but I'm still on such a high from Christmas that it has flown by remarkably fast.


All bundled up to go play outside after dinner on Christmas Eve.



Reading in the afternoon while we got Christmas Eve dinner ready. He has loved the Calvin and Hobbes books we have on our shelf, both to look at by himself and for us to read to him.


We had our first official nativity pageant with Spencer as Joseph and Esther as Mary but somehow Esther didn't get in the picture. The photo below is from our "dress rehearsal" a few weeks earlier and it was just as hard to get them together, so unfortunately the only good one turned out blurry :( Still, it was very sweet to hear Spencer tell the story of Christ's birth that he really caught onto this year.


Spencer was excited Christmas morning, despite his facial expression here, but he actually didn't remember about the presents and Santa filling the stockings until after being awake for almost an hour (I was letting Daniel snooze a little longer). Also pictured here is Daniel's favorite Christmas gift, the organ from his grandma. She played for years and now that he is ward organist she offered it to him and his parents were able to bring it down just before Christmas (thank you again!!!!!!!!). It has been so helpful for him to practice at home during the week rather than squeezing in some time Saturday mornings at the church.


When we were wrapping presents, Spencer wanted to give Daniel some of his toys so he chose these old bean bags to wrap up.



Packages at Christmas are always so much fun--thank you to everyone who sent us gifts!!


Uncle Steven wins again with picking out the best present for the year. Esther absolutely loved this Elmo that sings when you squeeze his tummy. She has become a real fan of this furry red monster and points him out everywhere we see him in the stores, which is surprisingly a lot.

Enjoying yummy donuts Santa brought for breakfast.

We didn't have church until 1:00 so the kids got to play with all their new toys all morning. We joined some friends in the ward for dinner, successfully cooking our first turkey to bring, and had a great evening with them.