Christmas!!

Oh Santa.
Father Christmas.
King of Commercialism.
How we love thee to take avantage of the fact that our children have been taught that you are watching their every move.
It comes in handy. A lot.
And even though your greatness has been blown a little bit out of proportion, you can be kind of fun.
So we'll stick with you.

These photos were taken at a playgroup a girl in our new ward organizes.
The entire gym was decorated like that.
Insanity!
That girl worked hard. And the kids loved it. Especially the surprise visitor at the end.
Makenzie told him she would like a FurReal puppy.
I teased her that he must have thought she meant a "FOR REAL" puppy and what if he brought us a REAL dog? She said Santa knew what she meant.

Jarom told Santa he wanted a Transformers gun.

(Makenzie later informed him that there are no Transformers guns. So he switched to a Transformers sword that he had seen once.)

So Christmas Eve came. 

Justin's mom and dad and brother Devin and his wife Candace came over and we had pizza and watched a movie. Justin and Makenzie read us the story of Jesus' birth in Luke and we were all amazed by Makenzie's ability to read the Bible. It was really cool.

Before bed, the kids sprinkled some reindeer food (oatmeal and glitter) in the front yard.

We left some cookies and egg nog for Santa.

(side note: a girl in our ward brought us cookie dough for our neighbor treat with a note that said "Everybody can use some extra dough at Christmas time!" Can I just say how awesome of a gift that was, because the last thing I felt like doing on Christmas Eve, after so much holiday baking, was making cookies from scratch.)

And then... Santa came.

Makenzie saw this picture and said, "Whoa! You woke up before US and took a picture??"

Yup. ;)

Kyle headed straight for his rocking horse, aka Little Sebastian.

Please tell me you watch Parks and Rec.

That show is so funny.

If you watch it, you know all about Little Sebastian. If you don't, do.

Kyle's face makes me laugh in this picture- he's so not fully awake yet.

Slightly scared.

Okay, I couldn't resist...

And then... we let the gift opening commence!
Makenzie getting her walkable pet shop puppy.

The light up green and black Skechers he has been wanting.

It was hard for me to sacrifice my style for his, but he loves them SO much.

Kyle just went around gathering everyone's chocolate.

Melissa and Doug wooden cupcake decorating set. Highly recommend this if you have girls, she LOVES it!

The shield to match the costume my dad got him for his birthday. He wears it ALL the time.

 

Mouth full of chocolate.

Makenzie helping him open his Sing-A-Ma-Jig.

But he was more excited about you-know-what.

 

Justin feigning excitement about his new dress pants for work.

And Makenzie overjoyed about the thing she ended up wanting more than anything from Santa. A Beanie Boos keychain husky. She's so excited to wear it on her backpack and show it to her friends at school.

I wasn't kidding about the chocolate.

But he did love to cuddle his pillow pet puppy.

After church, my dad, sister Tiffany and her fiancee Joey came over for Christmas dinner.

And my dad totally spoiled them with some really cool gifts.

Jarom got this fun remote control car that flips over.

And Makenzie got her FurReal puppy. :)

She was happy.

He gave Kyle this Mater (Cars) push toy that blows bubbles and Jarom has totally taken it over. 

Good times.

It was a great Christmas.

Justin spoiled me with a Garmin Forerunner 110 (gps watch I use for running) that has created a huge boost in my running dedication. And we received some really wonderful gifts from other family and friends- thank you all so much! 

Hope you all had a great Christmas!

Kids' Christmas Portraits

Ha... I called them portraits. It makes them sound official, right? Good.

So I have had a super crazy week. Our renters decided to up and move out of our old house without telling us, which has led to several fun cleaning trips with the kids and a late-night painting extravaganza for myself last night. Tonight will be more painting and cleaning and tomorrow morning we'll do yard cleanup before an open house at 10. Who knew being a landlord would be so fun?

I also have two callings in my new ward. Which is totally crazy since our ward is HUGE. I'm a visiting teaching coordinator and just got called to be Camp Director for girls' camp. They're both fun callings, so I can't complain, it's just keeping me busy.

My sister Tiffany also got ENGAGED recently so I've been wedding planning, visiting her (gorgeous) reception center, wedding dress shopping, idea hunting online, etc.. which is super duper fun, and I wish I could be doing all day long if only I had more time.

Oh yeah, I forgot to mention that I'm the full-time caregiver of three small children, official house cleaner and CHRISTMAS is right around the corner.

So this morning I took a little break from the rental house madness and cleaned our new house (felt great) and then took the kids out for Christmas photos. I usually go to Target and get Christmas pictures every year, but since I'm working around a crazy schedule and I have my dad's camera, I decided to do my own. I think they turned out just fine.

So here they are... and you know how I like to post a million pictures... so be forewarned!

 

 (I LOVE this first picture of Kyle!)

Love this one, too!

That's a wrap!

Little Miss 6-Year-Old

Makenzie turned SIX last Monday.

How can I possibly have a six year old??

I don't know why, but all of a sudden six seems really old.

Five is still "little kid", but six is entering "regular kid" age range.

Crazy.

For her party this year, she originally wanted a fairy party.

The only problem with that is that most of her guests would be boys.

I just couldn't wrap my head around sending an invitation to boys that said:

"You're invited to a Fairy Party!"

So I asked her if there was any other party theme she would like.

She contemplated and considered a few choices, and finally exclaimed, "A TEA PARTY!"

I knew the way she said tea party that there was no changing it.

She was giddy.

And so the boys would drink tea (aka hot apple cider).

I tried to give it some Mad Hatter elements so it would feel a little more suitable for boys and girls.

 I loved this Cheshire Cat cheese ball. I found it on bhg.com. It's rolled in blue corn tortilla chips, which actually look purple.

 She wanted a white cake. Inside it's layers of brownie and yellow cake and the frosting was a cream cheese buttercream. It was pretty tasty.

 The setup.

 I made little tea sandwiches. Apparently a lot of kids don't like sandwiches very much. But the pb&j's went pretty quickly.

 Makenzie started giggling when she saw the cheese ball.

She was also pretty happy that the Mad Hatter made it to the party.
This is a terrible picture of the hat that I made out of cardboard... only to find out the next day that Justin's brother had a real Mad Hatter costume. Bummer! Oh well. Next tea party, I guess...

I was trying to snap pictures of her before the party when the doorbell rang. You can see how excited she was to get the door.

Our first guest, Ka'aulani.

And then her lifelong buddy, Weston.

And then we got too busy with the party and I forgot to take individual pictures with friends.

This picture cracks me up because I had boiled the water on the stove and meant to turn it off and let it cool down for a while before putting it in the teapots, but forgot. So when Justin started pouring the water in their teacups, it was steaming like crazy. Justin was speaking in this high-pitched British accent and said, "Here's some boiling hot water for you, children." haha.. we put some ice in their cups though and it cooled down pretty quickly

Here is Makenzie chatting away with the only friend she wanted to invite from school.  I think there may be some puppy love type crush going on there, but I refuse to accept it. :)

 

Kyle thought it was good fun.

We played a game I called The Disappearing Cheshire Cat. We had all the kids wait in our front room while each kid took a turn hiding the cat and then they all searched for it. Man, I would have never guessed they'd have so much fun doing that, they LOVED it!

We also played a game where they tossed sugar cubes into teacups, but if I could go back and change it, I would have had them see who could stack sugar cubes the highest, because some of the kids had a blast stacking sugar cubes after the party was over.

She made her wish and blew out candles...

And opened lots of wonderful gifts from her friends and family.
She had a great time and I think her friends did, too.
Happy Birthday to my sweet little six year old!