Best Day of the Year!

We woke up Christmas morning and saw that Santa had visited!!

 

 

We began the day with a family prayer, then took our traditional "stocking" pictures.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Ali was ready to eat the orange from her stocking and didn't care about opening presents...yet.

 

Teague made a beautiful ornament for us...

 

...while Gavin made a pretty "pop-up" card for Grandma & Grandpa.

 

Our family received an amazing gift!  There was a huge wrapped box under the tree and inside were 8 smaller wrapped gifts.  We each opened one of them and discovered we are moving to India!!!

 

Teague was so happy with all the new Playdoh he received and Hiram was happy it was warm enough to play with him outside.

 

Ali was very happy with her gifts after all.  She received 4 new baby dolls.  My baby takes such good care of her babies!

 

It was so wonderful having Grandma, Grandpa, Tyler, and Levi to celebrate Christmas with us!!

We wish all of our families could be with us, but luckily we were able to call everyone!

 

We all enjoyed singing Christmas carols so much on Christmas Eve that we had a repeat on Christmas Day.  We also made a delicious ham with all the trimmings for dinner.

 

For dessert we all tried a traditional yule log cake for the first time...

 

...where have you been all my life?  Yule log you are a delicious, rich chocolate mousse decadence!

We also had our favorite Lindor truffles.

 

We had to watch another favorite "A Christmas Story."

 

A beautiful moon rose to end this best day of the year!

Christmas Eve

After we finished celebrating Levi's birthday we began celebrating Christmas Eve.  We read the last day of our 24 Days of Christmas book, then went down to the basement to sing lots of Christmas carols.  (I think all 12 of us singing together was my favorite part of the evening!)

We went upstairs to watch our traditional shows and found some gifts under the tree.  The Christmas Eve Elf had struck again!

All 8 of the cousins got new pj's.

(It's easier to get "silly" face shots then ones of all the kids looking and smiling at the camera at the same time, ha ha!)

 

We watched our favorite shows, The King is Born...

...and 'Twas the Night Before Christmas.

 

We set out cookies and milk and a cupcake for Santa.

Then got the kids settled in for their slumber party.  Teague had planned to join the crew, but when it came time for it he decided his own bed sounded more comfy.  Levi agreed with Teague, so the other 6 started in the basement.  Hiram and Ali ended up in their own beds too, so only 4 of the 8 had the slumber party.  Visions of sugar plums would soon be dancing in their heads!

Levi's Birthday

Levi is a Christmas Eve baby and he celebrated his 3rd birthday in Canada!

He had a party in Idaho before they left, but we had to make cupcakes again for him!

Happy Birthday Levi!!!

I wish my kids could always celebrate birthdays with their cousins!

Out of Town Visitors

Grandpa & Grandma Green-eyes, Tyler, and Levi came to spend Christmas with us!!

 

We had to take the cousins to the mall to visit another out-of-town guest, Santa!

Santa's village was so cute with these fun reindeer.

Don't they look like they know how to have fun?

I love this one with the cookies and milk!

The mall also had a huge Christmas village set up with trains running though it.  I have several train enthusiasts in my family, so we had to check it out.  It was a huge hit, as one of the trains was our favorite, Thomas the Tank Engine.  We're going to have a merry time!

Sunday Best

The Sunday before Christmas our ward had a special Sacrament meeting.

Kaleb narrated a scripture, Noé sang with the Young Women, and Gavin, Teague, & Hiram sang with the Primary.

We may be a silly crew...

...but we do love celebrating the Savior's birth in such a beautiful way.

The dress Ali is wearing used to be Noé's.  She did not feel like cooperating for a picture though.

The tree cooperated though, to show it's new lovely tree skirt that we won from My Cotton Creations last year!

Santa Baby

I must say I love this little Santa outfit that I scored for only $1.20 (retail $20.00).  I bought it to have Gavin's one-year photos taken in, but I had my other babies wear it too.

Sweet Ali.

Darling Hiram.

I swore I took a picture of Teague in it too, but it's not on this blog.  Someday I'll have to search through my old picture CD's to try and find a picture of him in it.  He's a pretty cute monkey though!

Gavin, our original precious Santa Baby!

I didn't have it for Noé and Kaleb, but I do have a photo of just the two of them from this shoot that I'll have to scan and add later.

 

I feel so lucky to have had six Santa Babies!!

The Horned Donkey

At our ward Christmas party we had a yummy dinner followed by a lovely program.  Kaleb sang with the Young Men, Noé sang with the Young Women, and Gavin, Teague, & Hiram performed in the live nativity.

Hiram was the cow.

However, after it was over and I asked how he enjoyed being the cow, he replied, "I wasn't the cow, I was the horned donkey!"

Sweet boy, I love you so!

Christmas Arts & Crafts

Teague & Gavin got to participate in an arts & crafts day at school making several sweet little projects for the season.  Here are their "sock" snowmen.

And their lovely poinsettias.

This picture just makes me laugh!

They have the same raised eyebrows and fake smile.

They look like the junior and senior versions of the same model.

Gavin made this darling penguin.

And Teague made this colorful gingerbread man.

Sweet brothers.  Love this!

They also painted these snowman pictures, but they were hanging up on their bulletin boards at school, so they brought them home later.  I'm so glad they got to make such fun and creative projects.

Noé also made these cute Christmas ornaments out of modeling clay.

Well done kids!!