Pre-Christmas Fun

We have had so much fun this season the spirit of Christmas was really with us. I realized the other day why this year meant so much more than other years, last year I was couch bound trying to keep a baby in and at the cabin and the year before I was in London. This is the first in the last three years we have been able to enjoy all our pre-Christmas traditions together. After the Nutcracker and Kaite's birthday activities we started with setting up the trees. Yep tree(s), one of Ky's co-workers bought a house with a Christmas tree in it and didn't want it so we took it. I don't know why I don't have any pics of us actually setting up the Christmas trees but we had a ball.

First Christmas!

 Tree downstairs with all the presents and the train, the girls decorated this one by themselves. We really enjoyed Christmas morning downstairs with the fire and carpet.

 

 Our free tree upstairs, and since it didn't have the train around it we were able to put it in front of the window.

 

After the trees we had three Christmas parties in a week, it was also the week of Kaite's baptism (I was a little frazzled).

The first party was the S&R party. We had some awesome homemade soup (I had the homemade cream of mushroom, yum) and there was peach cobbler. The kids had fun playing with all theirs friends that made it and checking out the ambulance.

Santa came and visited and I totally expected Lyvi to cry, but she surprised us all and smiled big! She had everyone in the room laughing. Kami said this wasn't the real Santa because of the mistletoe toe on his hat! Kaite said she thinks this is the real one since his beard is attached, funny how they think!

Ky got a good somewhat blurry one.

But Brett got an awesome one!

The next party was the city one which we ended up missing since our sitter canceled on us the night before at 10pm, we were pretty disappointed I thought we had found a nice responsible one. The last party was the ward party, this was also the same day of the baptism. Devin, Julie and the kids came with us.

Here is Anna and Kami singing with their bells.

All the kids up on stage Kaite is on the right and Ash is behind Kami.

Then Santa came, Ash says she is too big to sit on his lap....

All the girlies together, they said this one didn't have glasses and he was wearing cowboy boots so he isn't the real one either.

We had a fun party but after all the fun from earlier that day everyone was wiped out.We couldn't get the kids to bed fast enough! Then all us adults played some Ticket to Ride (Devin & Ky totally cheated).

Sunday morning is crazy around here with four sets of hair to do, well adding more people including another girl makes it even crazier. Ky thought it was funny that we were stationed in the living room together.

We finally got Kaite's roller coaster set up. Thankfully, Ky came to the rescue and finished it after finals, it was taking me way too long!

We made goodies! The girls love frosting cookies!

Here are Kami's

Kaite's

And Ash's.

The Saturday before Christmas we hit the Christmas exhibit at the museum.

Kami was really creeped out by this fake Santa!

They had a bunch of nativity sets from all over the world.

This was a display of Bethlehem.

Chris, Chantelle, Chelsea, and Ky's parents came with us.

This was the only pic of Chelsea I have. Ky doesn't take as many pics as I do when he is in charge of the camera.

It was a fun exhibit and when we were done we drove around and looked at Christmas lights. We of course had to go down candy cane lane, but the most exciting part was when we saw Santa at one of the houses, the line was way too long tho.

Sunday the girls wore their dresses. We got some cute shots of Lyvi, she is becoming a camera ham.

It is hard to get a decent pic when they are all hungry and Kami and Kaite have each others tights on!!

Later that night we made "ginger bread" houses. The girls had a ball! And we got frosting everywhere!

Kami's house

Kaite's house

Ash's house

We had so much fun this year and I am sad it is over, it really went way to fast. We have been enjoying hanging around the house playing games and watching our Harry Potter marathon. I am trying to catch up on my posts but I still have a ways to go.