Christmas 2014

Christmas was so nice this year, just relaxing. The days before were a little more stressful though. Every year I try to get all my shopping/errands done a couple days before Christmas because I do not want to deal with the crowds. Then I always ended just needing "one more thing". That's how it works out.

Just a couple days before Christmas we took Brooklyn to take her annual picture with Santa at the mall. These pictures go on our tree and I love looking at them every year. I know, I know I only have four so far, but I still love it.

Ashley made her the cutest outfit to see Santa in!

We went to the temple!

On Christmas Eve we got all the kids together to make their own gingerbread houses. All day when we were getting ready I told Brooklyn that all her cousins were coming over to make gingerbread houses. She would tell me "I already made one mom". 

But of course when the kids got there and everyone was working on one, she jumped right in. We were able to get all the kids to squeeze into our kitchen.

You like Parker's cut off tee? Don't worry, it makes an appearance later.

After gingerbread houses, the kids opened presents from each family. Brooklyn got a Doc McStuffins guitar (this was on her list to Santa) from the Zarates, and Frozen pajamas from the Miles. Allie got a guitar too. The older girls had them put a show on for us. 

Here is Allie and Brookie playing Jingle Bells! Making his music video debut, pouty Parker and his awesome cut off tee!

Once everybody left I had realized we didn't have cookies for Santa yet. So with Ashley's help we whip up a quick batch of sugar cookies. 

Then we opened up Christmas jammies and headed out the door to look at Christmas lights!

We were out for about an hour and a half looking at lights before Brookie went to sleep. Bubba found this house that had the neatest thing in their window. It was a video of what looked like Santa getting to their house and putting the presents out. He even looks at you to tell you to be quiet. It was so neat, we told Brooklyn we better get home quick before he comes to our house.

Brooklyn woke up so early on Christmas and the funny thing is she forgot it was Christmas, she just looked over at me and asked if she could watch TV. I waited a little bit to see if she would go back to sleep and she didn't, it was killing me. So I woke up Dave and Ash and told them Brookie is up! LOL

She was so cute! I love this age and the magic of Christmas. This video is my favorite, we were shopping at WalMart a couple weeks before Christmas and she saw this Doc McStuffins kit and wanted it so bad. She would say "please" over and over again. I told her we had to ask Santa for it, and she would say "Mom let's pay now". She obviously was heartbroken when she didn't get to leave the store with it. Here she is opening the present. We just had the TV and Christmas light on, it was too early. So the video is a little dark. :)

After a nice nap, we played with our new stuff for a little bit before we cooked to go to Mandy's house for dinner.

Dinner was amazing! It was nice to just get together and not worry about work or other responsiblites for a couple days. Dave did end up working Christmas Eve and Christmas day which was hard. 

After dinner Allan taught the kids how to play Go Fish. 

Funny Brooklyn story:

Allan asked Carter if he had a card, when Carter couldn't tell the difference of the cards Allan held it up and showed him what he needed. When Brooklyn saw it, she held hers up and yelled really loud "I have that". 

We had a great Christmas spending it with those we love!