Friday, December 30, 2011

Christmas fun

We had a great Christmas this year. It was a little crazy, and I wish I had taken more pictures (as always), but at least I got a few...

On Friday, the 23rd, my mom and some of my sisters and nieces came over to make gingerbread houses with the kids. Julia took it very seriously, and worked very hard on hers making lamps, a walkway, windows, and many other little details. She then decorated a house for Chase too, since he was taking a nap.

Ethan cared more about slapping as much candy on his as possible, and stuffed candy inside the house saying they were people (hmmm, is he turning into a teenager?!).
At first Daphne wasn't quite sure about the frosting, she preferred to just eat the candy rather than put it on the house. But she soon got the hang of it and took her job very seriously.
Grandma Susan (Derek's mom) enjoyed holding little Olivia, who was too small to make a house this year.
Two of my sisters, my mom, and me:
That night we attended the annual family Christmas party. It is typically on Christmas Eve, but was a day early this year. We enjoyed great food and visiting with everyone, and the kids loved the children's gift exchange, as always.
After the party we headed to temple square to quickly enjoy the lights before heading home to get Chase to bed.
Chase wouldn't keep mittens on his hands and they got really cold really fast. He was SO not happy. So we basically walked through temple square and main street, and then Derek and I left Ethan and Julia with his parents and my family to go get the cars to leave. We managed to get one picture before we left. (I wish we had more!!)
Christmas Eve this year was different because we are usually in Salt Lake for the family party. This year my family came to our house (and brought food--yay!). We had dinner and sang Christmas carols. The kids acted out the Christmas story (sort of). And it was a nice, relaxed night.
(Above and below: singing Chrismas carols)

It really is nice having bigger kids to help out with Chase!

Daphne and Chase played with these toys behind the couch for most of the night.
And see the nativity figures lined up below? Chase did that. He loves lining things up and sorting them.
Daphne quite liked the nativity too!
The kids dressed up to act out the Christmas story. But Chase didn't get the memo that he was supposed to sit during the reenactment. He was running back and forth the entire time, and playing hide and seek under a blanket.



It was a nice evening.
The next morning was Christmas!!
Chase got up around 8:15, and we had to go wake up Ethan and Julia.

Chase is obsessed with elephants right now (which he calls moot), so he got a stuffed elephant and a plastic elephant figure in his stocking. Here is is playing with the elephant and tiger figures:
After opening presents we quickly got dressed and ready and went to church. (I should have taken a picture of all of us in our Christmas Sunday best, but of course I didn't.)
At least I got a shot of chase in his outfit before he got changed into something more comfortable. He really loves this pound a ball set that he got for Christmas too.
And he's quite a fan of the handbells.
Actually we all quite like them, Christmas evening Derek's mom and my sisters had lots of fun playing tons of Christmas songs with the bells.
It was a great Christmas.

1 comment:

Kristen said...

I wish I could've been there for the gingerbread houses! It looks like it was fun.