Merry Christmas 2013!

We had such a great Christmas!  We had a great break from work and school, and had family visiting-- it was so much fun!

During the middle of December my sister, Charlotte, had a baby!  Little Zachary is cute as can be, and his big sisters got to come play at our house.  The kids LOVED sledding down the hill in our front yard.  They really wanted to make a snowman, but the snow was a little too powdery to stick together.  But they had lots of fun anyway, and then went inside for some hot chocolate.

The Hendriksen Christmas party was great, as always, and we got to act out the nativity with our very special 10 day old nephew, Zachary, playing the part of the baby Jesus.  It was so sweet!  And so fun finally getting to see Robyn and Eric and their family who were in town from Ohio!

The angels:

We visited temple square right after the party, as we always do:

The cousins had so much fun hanging out together!  Here they are on Christmas Eve at Grandma's house:

And here is our house, presents ready and stockings filled.  

Christmas morning!  

The kids let us sleep in until almost 9, a great Christmas gift!

We opened presents at our house, and then took brunch and more presents to my parents' house.  (Next year I need to take more pictures!!)


On New Year's Eve we got together at my parents' house and had dinner and a fun little party.

We left at 10 after celebrating New York's New Year's Eve, and then celebrated our own with Chase in bed at home.  (But the older kids got to stay up.)

And we were able to snap a few family pictures in front of the tree before we took all the Christmas decorations down.  (Why does it seem to take SO much longer taking everything down?!)

We finished out our Christmas break with a girls' shopping day with my mom and sisters, 

one of our favorite traditions.  

Hope you all had a very merry Christmas too!!