The most wonderful day of the year

My babies,

You made Christmas so fun. We love your enthusiasm and joy. You get so excited about all of the activities and the traditions, plus the excitement of Santa coming is just magical.
We celebrated with Grammie and cousins the Sunday before Christmas, which happened to also be Grammie's birthday. That worked out to be a fun night and yummy food:

We woke up to snow on Christmas Eve. It was so pretty and so nice that we didn't have anywhere to go. You guys had a breakfast picnic by the tree. You guys love this tradition:

Then we spent most of the day cleaning and cleaning the house for a present for Dad. It felt nice to have the house all clean before dinner!
After dinner you opened your new pj's and then we watched the Grinch:

You guys loved your new pj's, a lot. They are all soft and warm.
After that we read Luke 2 and used our finger puppets to act out the story. Next we sang a carol around the piano:

put out cookies and went to bed!
The next morning this is what we found:

All of the carrots were gone and most of the cookies! This is what it looked like downstairs, just before you came down:

On came the music and it was time for you to see what was in your stockings:

There were lost of yummy treats and lots of fun presents to open.
We had bacon and eggs for breakfast and you guys were really excited about these little juice drinks:

The snow had all melted, which made it nice to drive to Gramma and Grandpa's house. We opened presents and then had a yummy lunch, followed by a piano concert and everyone got to play the bells.
Here's a pic of me and my mommy by her tree:

It snowed late Christmas night, giving us a white Christmas after all, so it was pretty perfect.
Love you all my jolly little elves,
Mom

Freddie in 2018

Freddie was hiding on Christmas Eve morning in his last place. He leaves with Santa when he comes that night. Check out all the places you found him this year:

Christmas Prep

Kids,

Oh how exciting Christmas time was. We put our tree and all of our decorations up right after Thanksgiving, so we had plenty of time to enjoy them. You all loved everything about Christmas and watching your excitement culminate on Christmas Eve and Christmas morning is what makes it this time of year so special for me and for Dad. It was the best. Let's look back at some of the fun things we did before Christmas Eve:

TJ, you got a free ticket to watch the Jazz play and you were excited to go see the game with Dad:

You got to see the lights at temple square:

and look inside the tabernacle too!:

I volunteered to come in and talk to your class about Christmas in the Philippines. We colored Filipino Christmas stars after I talked to you about traditions there, and then we taped them into spheres and had a parade around the room. As you passed me I put each lantern on my flashlight and we saw them glow. It was pretty awesome:

We got pictures with the Santa at Cabella's and loved it, mostly because there was no line and the pictures were printed right then!
You also wrote letters to Santa:

One Sunday we visited Nana and Scott, and had an early dinner with Great Grandma and Grandpa, and then opened gifts:

Gramma and Ava and Coen came up to watch TJ in his cute singing program at the school:

Afterward we picked Fish up from Kinder and went out to lunch and to see Santa at Cabella's:

We loved driving through the lights in Layton. They were pretty awesome this year, and there was a free hot chocolate bonus handed through the windows as we pulled in. Fun times:

Hammer, you made this house at school. There are beans glued all over the roof, I guess it's a type of candy house but it's a bean house? I'm not really sure what's going on, but you wanted a pic with it before we threw it away:

 The Saturday before Chritmas Lulu and Ava got to see the nutcracker with Gramma. What a treat:

We made cookies after, which was a lot of fun:

Some of those cookies made it into our secret Santa delivery bags. That night we went with some friends and left boxes of gifts for 2 families in our neighborhood. You loved ringing the door bell and running. Thanks to our friends for letting us add a few things to the boxes and tag along:

The day before Christmas Eve it was comparatively warm, so the boys and I ran over to the park not far from our house to see some fun lights and blow up figures:

We still froze, but it was worth seeing. It's sweet that they put them all up in memory of a little girl who died of cancer not long ago.

Then it was Christmas Eve and Christmas Day! The most wonderful 24 hours of the whole year.

Stay tuned for more on that.

Love you my festive bunch,

Mom