Christmas

Christmas was lots of fun! We went to church Christmas Eve and then the boys got to open one present which was new jammies.  They were very excited about that.  I am not sure what happened to Nolan's pants in this picture.

They woke up Christmas morning very excited.  Here are a couple pics of Christmas morning at our house.

We went to my Aunts house for lunch and had a very nice time.  The kids were all very good and it was great.  Then we headed on over to Jake's parents house for a few days.  Here are a few pics from there.

 Cameron, Evan, and Pax all lined up to go bowling with their dads.

 Decorating gingerbread trains!!

 The girls made sure that Austin had everything he needed :)

 

Craft time with Aunt Jen!

 Papa is sure loved :) What is he gonna do when they get bigger?

Lydia and baby Ethan

 

 

We had Christmas with my family on New Years Day and that was a great day, too. Here are 6 handsome little fellows!

 

 

With their grandma and papa!

 

 

Nolan hanging out with Uncle Kurt

 

The boys opening their fort kit from Aunt Lindsey and Uncle Keith.  We had so much fun with it and I know we will in the future!

 

 

Loved all those memories!

JOY

We tried to get a picture of the boys holding the letters "J" "O" "Y."   It was pretty funny.  Okay.  Not so much funny at the time.  It was crazy but it was funny looking back at the pics.  Here are a few.

This is the one we ended up picking :)

Christmas Countdown

Jake and I decided to do a Christmas countdown with the boys.  We had something planned for each day until Christmas.  Most of them were things we did together as a family.  There were a couple of small gifts but the point was to spend quality time together, not think about presents constantly, and remember baby Jesus was born.  Some days were just hot cocoa wrapped up or a game that we already had that we were going to play.  We drove around and looked at Christmas lights, sang Christmas songs, made a gingerbread house and some other things.

The first night was making home-made caramels!  That was fun and they were very yummy!

Another night was making Christmas cards

One night was dancing to Christmas music...

We also pretended Nolan's baby doll was baby Jesus.  We wrapped up the baby like Jesus was wrapped up the night he was born in the stable

This was a lot of fun (after Cameron realized he wasn't getting a present every day and started enjoying the activities :) We will probably do it again next year!

Putting up the Christmas Tree

The boys were super excited to put up the Christmas tree.  They could. not. wait.  It was pretty fun.  Here is a cute pic of Austin crawling around before we did it!

I love this next picture.  I love the moment.  We read lots of books on the kitchen floor because we are just so excited we don't make it anywhere else.  Nolan looks like he was busy serving drinks before we sat to read :)

Tree trimming time.....of course we need a spatula to do that!

Cam was good at spreading out the branches

the boys waiting for us to get the branches all spread out....

decorating...

bathtub pic!