The rest of our December Festivities....

MeRrY cHrIsTmAs 2009!

Looks like Santa found our house! I guess the kids were pretty good this year! What a fun morning! We told the kids they couldn't go downstairs until 8am! Teagen was up several times in the night cause he was so excited & then Kiley found him downstairs at 6 something watching TV! What a stinker! A tradition at our house is that Santa leaves the stockings at the foot of every one's beds, so they can sit in their rooms & open the presents they find in their stockings & maybe nibble on a little bit of candy--that is what I experienced as a kid & LOVED it! I think our kids also enjoy it & look forward to the surprises they get inside their stockings!

We had a fun, lazy day! The boys played the wii for most of it & Liv loved her pink bike & baby stuff! I got to talk with my entire family for 2 1/2 hours, including my little bro Rob & little sis Ash. They are both serving missions for our church (The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints). Rob is in Brazil & Ash is in Michigan. My bro Chris set up this conference line & we all called in on it & all 10 of us (including my parents) got to sit & chat! It was such a neat experience & made my Christmas! What a fun day we had! We are so truly blessed & are so grateful for our Savior, Jesus Christ & for the gift that He has given us!

CHRISTMAS EVE 2009!

Here I am with my big pregnant belly on Christmas Eve--5 more weeks to go. I am not a huge fan of taking pictures of full body shots while I am preggers, but I knew that since this is my last one, I need to have a few for memory sake.....and to help remind me that I don't want to ever be pregnant again! We had such a fun Christmas Eve this year, just our little family! We missed our extended family awfully bad, but made the most of it!

We had the boys play their December piano recital pieces for part of our family program. Kiley put together a nice little program & of course it would not be complete with out the tradition of reading the birth of our Savior Jesus Christ! What a fun evening!

After the program, we went out to spread the Reindeer Food all over the lawn so that they could have a snack while Santa dropped off the presents & enjoyed his snack. The kids also made sure they put out the magical key so that he could get into our house since we don't have a fireplace (forgot to take pictures of that event!!!).

Opening of the TRADITIONAL CHRISTMAS PJ'S!!!!

This is a tradition that I LOVED as a child & hope that my kids love it as well! I love to look back on pictures when I was a kid wearing our new jammies, sometimes they were home made & sometimes they were not. I love the "train" pictures & it is a MUST at our house now. It is so fun to see how much the kids have grown & changed each year.

Our kids really like to pose for the camera!

Kiley had to show off his new PJ's with the boys!

Although Kiley & I have been married for 10 1/2 years now & we should be on top of everything, we are still trying to create our family traditions. We had no plans for Christmas Eve. Kiley had to go to work for the first part of the day, so the kids & I pretty much just hung out. Being the anal person that I am, my house had to be spotless & beautiful for Christmas morning! So I spent a lot of time getting things tidy. When Kiley got home, we decided that we'd go out to dinner.....a big deal cause if we are going to take the kids out to dinner, we usually just go with Subway. But we thought we'd go somewhere a little nicer so we took them to Texas Roadhouse. We had the BEST service & the food was FANTASTIC! The kids really enjoyed it & it was so nice to come home to a clean kitchen!

We let the kids open their Christmas presents from the Mortensen's in Seattle because it is always fun to open something besides the traditional PJ's that we do every year. They were pretty excited about their gift cards & couldn't wait to use them! Thanks Mortensen's!!!

Dec. 20th:
GINGERBREAD HOUSES!!!
The Berryman's came over & we made some fantastically messy gingerbread houses. The kids had so much fun! The Berryman's had a great kit that seemed to be pretty simple & easy. I had a kit as well, but it was a few years old & when we opened it, I thought the smell was going to kill me! Luckily I had a box of graham crackers & icing on hand. I was very impressed to see each of my kids personalities in their little houses! Braydens was very precise, a rhyme & reason to everything. Very thought out. Teagens was just very.......random! Olivia's needed a lot of help & was lacking lots of candy cause she kept eating it! It was a great night & something we hope to do every Christmas Season!

Before the Berryman's came over, the kids really wanted me to take their pictures with their daddy! They had so much fun posing & being so silly! It was quite comical to watch!

The Sunday before Christmas....(Dec. 20th)

I absolutely LOVE to get my kids all decked out for Christmas Sunday. I don't know that they enjoy it as much as I do, but it just always puts a smile on my face to see my boys looking so handsome & Livy looking so adorable! We all matched in our gray, red, & black attire. I may be partial, but I think I have pretty darn cute kids!

Dec. 17th:

Today was Olivia's MDO Christmas Pageant! We made sure she looked absolutely adorable before school & so we HAD to take a few pictures before she left. She kept telling me to take more & more. I think she knew she looked pretty darn cute & just kept hamming it up for the camera. The program was adorable & she did such a great job with her yellow star! She was very excited to give Miss Sherry & Miss Kelly their Christmas presents. She loves her teachers & loves going to school!

Liv with her favorite teacher, Miss Sherry!

Dec. 16th:

Teagen is playing basketball through the youth program on base again this year. He has thoroughly enjoyed it & really is such a great player! The coaches told the kids that who ever won some competition that they had during practice, they would get to pick the team name out of the hat. The week before they each got to write down what they wanted their team name to be. If any of you know my T-money, you know that he is a HUGE fan of BYU Cougars. So his contribution of course was the Cougars. Long story short, he won the little competition, pulled the team name out of the hat & as luck would have it, he pulled out COUGARS. Oh & I forgot to mention that their shirt color for the team is BLUE! Teagen is one happy little cougar!