Christmas Day 2017

Christmas Day we woke up and let the girls open up their presents from Santa. Aspen is still at that age where she is so excited by the first present she could care less about the rest, but it was fun. After that two of Justin's sisters and his niece came over. We had a delicious breakfast with lots of mimosas. I love just hanging out and catching up with everyone on Christmas morning. After that, we laid low until heading over to my sister's house for Christmas dinner. We had our usual honey baked ham and it was a good night. The kids played and we face timed with Mae in Nebraska. It was a good night and we ended with a game of bezzerwizzer which took me entirely too long to remember how to play. I also just finally got back the girl's Santa pictures so I figured this is the best time to share them!

I inherited this nativity that my Grandma hand painted and Everly made a cross out of wrapping paper for it.

Justin got me the maple candle we originally got on our honeymoon!

Aspen was not into this but we convinced her to hold Ev's hand and just take a picture.

Christmas Eve 2017

The night before Christmas Eve my sister brought the boys over along with stuff to make gingerbread houses. Justin was out with his sister that night so it was a fun thing to do with all of the kids. Teddy basically just wanted to eat his immediately and the same with Nora. Everly took her decorating very seriously. It was so cute. We finally convinced Aspen to leave the Mickey she was watching with Cameron to come and decorate hers. She was very meticulous about putting the candy on. The next morning we planned a ne little Christmas Eve tradition called Bagels and Bingo. I am not sure if this will be something we can do every year since I often work on Christmas Eve but it was fun to do this year. My sister had a Christmas bingo game and some candy canes as prizes and I picked up bagels and brought them over. It was a fun little way to start the day. Christmas Eve I was running late as usually and we barely got a seat but somehow I managed to sneak in and get a row for all of us. The kids were all actually pretty good during mass but part of that was because Teddy was sick. After mass we headed home for our Christmas Eve appetizers and presents from the cousins. The kids had a great night and it was fun to watch them open everything. Even Cam got really into ripping off the paper. It was a great night and we finally headed home to put out cookies for Santa and carrots for the reindeer!

Ted, "Can I eat this now?"

frosting everywhere

 

Missing Mae!

We clean up well.

Merry Christmas 2017

Merry Christmas! I had only 2 different Christmas cards this year but I wanted to make sure I shared them here. The fancy one is from Shutterfly and was my first time doing a card that opened up like a door. I really liked it. The second is from Costco and I actually typed Aspen's name wrong on the first order so I had to redo them. Thankfully, they are only $15. I love our pictures this year so it was really easy to make good Christmas cards! You can see some of our previous Christmas cards HERE.

Christmas at the Princess 2017

This year was our third year attending Christmas at the Princess. This event can get really busy so this year we made it a point to go on a week night. While that is hard to manage with all of the kids school activities and extracurriculars, it was totally worth it. We went on Monday and we could tell immediately as we drove up it was going to be a better experience. Last year I believe we went on a Sunday night and could barely get a parking spot. You can see our previous trips HERE. It has gotten much more expensive than the first year and there are no more "value night" but they have added things so I guess at least you are getting more. We had a lot of fun and I am glad we were able to make time for it again this year!

that's a can of la croix incase you were wondering

 

 

the cutest elves

we bring our own s'mores supplies

Christmas Performances

Last week both Aspen and Everly had Christmas performances at their schools. Aspen's was first on Wednesday and she did absolutely horrible. She does things on her own terms and is shy so singing in front of people was not going to happen. The thing is, she sings all of the time at home and loves dancing and had been singing the Christmas songs they were working on so it would have been so cute. After her failed performance, Justin and I stayed and had a cookie with her before heading back to work. Maybe next year?

 

Everly's performance was on Thursday night. My mom and Nora came and Everly did great. I do wish they used music for this performance, but the kids were still cute. Everly had been working hard to remember all of the songs and was not shy or nervous. She loved being up on stage with her friends and we are so proud of her. I compiled some of the clips into a cute video. Can't believe Christmas is a week away!

 

Nora is such a good little cousin!