Christmas

 

Christmas was fun this year. Enough said.

 

Just kidding!

 

But, really, right now, the ages my kids are, Christmas is magical. And I'm starting to realize that our years of Christmas being quite this magical are numbered.

 

I stressed in the days and weeks leading up to Christmas. I stressed about what Meili asked Santa for-if she would really like it. I stressed about what Grant asked Santa for-that he wouldn't be getting exactly what he asked for, but something similar instead. I stressed if the kids were getting too much. I stressed if they weren't getting enough. I stressed if they were getting equal amounts.

 

And, you know what, none of it really mattered in the end. I think their faces really say it all.

 

Next year, I'll try not to stress so much.

 

(Yeah right.)

 Here's the fam, in their new pajamas!

 

Then, the next morning...

Grant went downstairs to wake Meili up. He said, "Meili, come see what Santa brought!!!" She, sleepily said, "I don't think I got enough sleep." To which I replied, "So, you don't want to see what Santa brought?" She said, "I'll come open presents and then I'll come take a nap."

 

I think that should be the new Christmas tradition! But once she got a little sugar in her, she forgot all about sleep!

I wrapped this horse for Meili in the box from her Build-A-Bear unicorn, so that was the present she went for first. Even before her stocking, and before her present from Santa. I don't think she was disappointed.

 

 

I also don't think Grant was disappointed with his present from Santa-even though it wasn't a Paw Patroller.

 

 

 

And I had to get a picture of the utter mayhem left from Christmas morning.

 

We hurried and got ready, because the plan was going to church with my parents in Bountiful.

 But it was snowing so much that we quickly turned around, came home, and made a new plan.

We went to our own church, and then headed over to Honeyville. (I, of course, didn't take pictures.) But the kids loved being together. Loved, especially, having a sleepover at Grandma's house. And then went sledding in the morning.

 Nice winter attire there Josh!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Then, we headed to Bountiful-this time, for real.

 This was hilarious! I tried to be the mom that doesn't let her kids get all their presents out-so as not to lose pieces.

Grant had other plans. We kept telling him that he could get out his Paw Patrol track later, and he kept getting frustrated. He was persistent, and just waited until we were distracted and ripped into the box himself.

 But, none of Christmas is really about the presents-even though that has been a lot of this post. We loved making memories with our little family, and our extended families.

Christmas Lights

The weekend before Christmas, after a month of trying, I convinced Josh and my parents to take our kids on the train and to Ogden to see Christmas Lights. My mom was packed with things to do (as most are a couple days before Christmas), so she kept going back and forth trying to decide if she should go or not. She finally said, "Christmas is about making memories, not everything being perfectly wrapped!" Well, hopefully she didn't regret her decision because memories were definitely made.

 We took the Young Women at the beginning of the month, on Frontrunner to the lights at Temple Square, and ever since then, I couldn't get it out of my mind that Grant needed to ride the train! He thought it was pretty cool that it could go frontwards and backwards. He still calls it "the backwards train."

 When we got off the train, it immediately started snow/raining. And we had to walk with three little ones about a mile each way. Luckily, they were troopers, but I will admit that I second-guessed whether I should have convinced everyone of this plan or not.

 The kids were done pretty early on. But nothing a little hot chocolate, cookies, and treats couldn't fix.

The whole way back to the train, Meili was complaining that her feet were cold. So I made her make up different items to put in the 12 Days of Christmas. When we got on the train, my mom took off Meili's boots and found that her socks and feet were totally soaked. :( No wonder she complained. So all in all, I actually think she was a trooper.

It was definitely a fun Christmas memory. And I foresee me trying to convince my family of something similar again in the future!

Gingerbread Houses

The weekend after Thanksgiving, Josh's work rented out a theater, and we went to see Star Wars with Josh's sister and her husband. Then, the next day, my mom's work rented out a theater and my entire family went to see Moana.

 I thought the movie was really cute. And here are Meili and Ruby driving home with Grandma.

 Such divas! Then, in keeping with tradition, we did gingerbread houses at my parents' house.

 This year, since my parents' house is under renovations, my mom took us up on the offer to bring our own gingerbread houses-hence, Grant's house looks pretty sad. I thought I was only going to make one house, but Meili made her own house plans for her house, so I didn't have enough dough, so the cut the sides shorter and rolled them really thin (hence the burn), and didn't think about the fact that the roof would also need to be shorter. Anyway, his house struggled, but he didn't mind one bit!

 And I got to hear for the entire month of December, "Mom... Mom... Mom... Bremember.... Bremember how you said we could eat one treat off our ginger house every day? Bremember? Well... let's do that."

 And, here's Meili with her house. She did a fabulous job with her house plans. Of course, I should have known that she would want to create her own.

And that's Grant's house close up. He pretty much only wanted to use the lego treats.