Christmas Vacation

We stayed a few days after Christmas to spend time with the family. Mike wanted our Christmas vacation to be as fun as possible and planned for us to go 4-wheeling the day after Christmas. Lyla took some convincing to get on, but Mac was a little nervous, but still got on right away. We had a ton of fun and was a great day. 

 The next day we went down to the river and threw rocks and explored. We got some great pictures of the kids

Cute cousins

Christmas

 This year I was super excited for Christmas. Lyla finally started to really understand what Christmas meant and it made it so magical. It was super fun having a full house at the Green's and staying up late getting everything ready. 

The tree waiting to be discovered....except Emmy snuck in there somehow? haha

Found the Santa gift. It was so fun watching them light up and get so excited. 

Reading the note from Santa, and seeing his bites out of the cookies they made. 

Lyla is obsessed with Frozen this year, so most of what she got was some sort of dress up or Frozen doll. Here she is in her Elsa dress:

  

And Anna dress: 

I looked over and she was checking out her dress, feeling so pretty. 

Frozen figurines. So excited 

For Mac this year it was all about "boy stuff". Most everything in the house right now is dress ups, dolls and pink. So for Christmas we made sure to stock him up on super heros, guns and swords. He recently started naming all the superheros and loves them, so it was a perfect thing for him. 

Showing Julia his superman, batman and spiderman :) He was so proud of them

Rockwell was happy with chilling on the floor playing with the wrapping paper. Here he is with one of his gifts, and already giving it the chew test. 

Look at that happy guy

Playing with Mac's new swords!

 Trying out the new car in the cul-de-sac. They loved it 

The annual post-Christmas pic

Later that day I came in to the living room and found Mac's superheros, guns and mask all in the car. I thought it looked so cute with all the "manly" stuff all together. Mac is a great combination of an all boy get in the dirt kind of kid, but so soft and sweet at the same time. 

Christmas Eve

Christmas Eve this year was fun, as we got to be in CA. We went over to JJ's for dinner and did the nativity story after. Lyla got to be Mary, and Rockwell was baby Jesus. McKay was a shephard. It was so adorable to watch. We also opened presents with Gigi (Great Grandma R) after the nativity. 

No pictures of it, but after leaving JJ's we went and saw Christmas lights with the Green's. We drove around to a few good houses and ended up at our favorite, Dovewood Court. When we got back Mike read the Christmas story from the Bible and we opened PJ's. The kids saw some robes they wanted at Costco a few weeks before Christmas, so this year they got PJ's from Gma Green and robes from us :) They were super excited. 

Christmas Sunday

Took a little family picture in front of the tree before church on the Sunday before Christmas

3 adorable sweeties all dressed up ready for church

December Activities

I get a little crazy around the holidays. I like to start traditions, but also do as many memory-making activities as possible. I don't have pictures for it all, but so far this December we have: 

Visited temple square lights 

Sat on Santa's lap of course, and took a hay ride out by the farm we were at

Gingerbread houses with the Sohm's 

We have also created and done a list of random acts of kindness. A few examples are leaving cookies for the mailman, doorbell ditching flowers to some neighbors with a nice note, Lyla helped me make a tie blanket for the kids at the Children's Hospital, and making treats for friends. We also did the drive-thru lights at Thanksgiving Point, the live nativity in Bluffdale, festival of trees and zoo lights.

This year I really got into the "Elf on the Shelf" where we hide an elf in a new spot each night and when the kids wake up they try to find him. The story goes that the Elf is watching them to make sure they are good and flies back to Santa each night to report. The look on their face each morning as they discover his new spot is priceless.

"Christmas at Mom's"

Since we will be in CA for Christmas this year, we spend the Saturday before at Mom's house. We opened presents and had a nice Christmas dinner. Wally is living there right now while they wait for their new house to be built. 

Grandma (Mom) always thinks of the best gifts. This year they were exceptionally exciting because they came in these HUGE boxes! 

And what was it?! Bean bags! 

Rockwell got his own little bag of goodies. This classic happy Rock face is so adorable 

Grandma and Grandpa with all the grandkids. All the way up to 6 this year with the addition of Rockwell and Maisy! 

For the dinner, I found this cute tutorial on how to fold a napkin into a Christmas tree, so I brought some napkins and added to the decor. They were easy and turned out so cute.