Christmas Eve Recap

On Christmas Eve, we:

Continued cooking lovely (and totally calorie free, of course) treats.
A new personal favorite? Pretzel + rollo + melt in oven for 4 minutes + squish with pecan + cool = heaven.

Played in the snow (some more):


Had our first real (sort of) nativity with all of the Walton grandchildren:

Luke AKA Joseph (notice his staff - perfect for whacking the shepherds)
Our wisemen (and wise - grandma)
The lovely Mary (being the only girl grandchild has some major benefits - no one to fight you for the role)
The shepherds. Best costume award goes to Uncle Michael for his role as "Sheep."
Aunt Danica as the fabulous narrator. Notice Ryan, also a shepherd, who kept attempting to abduct the baby Jesus (played by his prized, beloved Cowie)
We read some Christmas stories, dressed the kids in their cute (and homemade) pajamas.

Luke was the official writer of the Santa note:

Then we bustled everyone in bed, waiting to see if Santa would come. And boy, did he ever.

Merry Christmas

I'll post more pics and recap later. Suffice it to say we were very spoiled.

We have been enjoying family, good food, an entertaining rendition of the nativity (note Ryan's cowie as baby Jesus), beautiful snow, and being together.

We are thankful for the Christmas season, for the opportunity to give, and especially for the birth of our Savior.

Merry Christmas to all.

All Dressed Up

A few photos of us in our Christmas duds.

I love my children all dressed up. Don't they look proper?

(It's all a farce)

Flying - and wardrobe malfunction

We made it to Utah, despite our flight landing at 1230 am Minnesota time.

Luke was a little sad due to a wardrobe malfunction - his zipper broke as we were boarding for the flight, so he stayed bundled up in a sweatshirt and blanket.



Evie did pretty darn well. (It's way, way easier traveling with 2 parents).


Ken won most of our bet (I was betting against the fact that the kids would sleep the whole way - he is the eternal optimist). She only screamed the last 10 minutes of the flight.

Both kids were overjoyed to be greated by grandparents and puppies.

We were excited, mostly, to get into bed.

I love to be with you

A little video for you to enjoy.

And Merry Christmas, everyone.

(We're getting a plane to go back to Utah tonight - if we don't get snowed in, anyway!)

If it wasn't 5 below

We would be doing this every day:



Our driveway and the snow mountain in the cul-de-sac make the perfect little sled runs.

We tried to turn Baloo into a sled dog.

But he got all wussy (woosey? woss-ey?) and just sat down in the snow, tail between his legs.

So Daddy played sled dog.


By the way, don't you just love little red cheeks in the cold?

Logic

At the store:

Luke: I want to get the green grapes
Mommy: Well, I like the purple grapes better. Why don't we get those?
Luke (with hands out to side in a "what-are-we-going-to-do?" pose): Well. It's Christmas time. Green is a Christmas color. And we don't want to ruin Christmas!


At breakfast:

Luke: Ooooh. I've got an idea. It's Christmastime and we should watch a Christmas movie. You got me a Christmas movie! (Discover Channel all about animals) It has snow and polar bears. That is Christmas!