Christmas Fun

We had a lot of fun this Christmas and the weeks leading up to it. Here are some the things we enjoyed over the past month of December........
We decorated the house for Christmas a week before Thanksgiving. It was so much fun to have a little helper that thought every decoration and light was magical!

 We made our annual ornaments for FHE to add to our little tree. Emma picked out the ornaments all by herself.

 Garlan and I won a gingerbread house kit - best invention ever! Emma thought it was so fun to put candy all over the house (and in her mouth).

 We went to BYU's family employee party. Emma was sooooo excited to see Santa until we got up to him. Then she freaked out so it became a family picture.  Sophie was memorized and could hardly take her eyes off him.

We took the girls up to Temple Square to see the lights with the mutual kids before it got too cold. They loved all the colors and both just sat and stared at all the people and all the lights.

 We moved Emma into a big girl bed over Thanksgiving break since she could climb out of her crib. She went through a brief stage of waking up before 7am and turning on all the lights and waking Sophie and us up. It freaked me out thinking she could be up anytime in the night wandering the house so we switched her lock to be able to lock her into her room from the outside. Now she knows if she gets up and tries to open her door and it's locked it means she needs to go back to bed. Luckily it has worked well for us and I sleep better knowing she's not made it outside or getting hurt while we are asleep.

I held a Holiday Boutique and Toy Swap at our house mid December and one of the booths was called Pretty Princess Parties. They brought Anna and Elsa to sing and take pictures with all the little kids. They were definitely the stars of the day! My mother-in-law won their drawing for a free 30 min. party by Elsa - so that's what we'll be doing to Emma's birthday in March.

Our good friends Spencer and Chelsea blessed their little baby boy the Sunday before Christmas. We went to our old ward's sacrament meeting so we could make it to the blessing on time. I know I'm not supposed to take pictures in the chapel but I couldn't help it when Emma walked up with all the primary children to sing a song. She had been sitting with some friends and when the kids got up so did she. I thought for sure she'd get up there and get embarrassed or try to come back down but she didn't do either one. She just stood there.

 At the blessing and luncheon I could resist taking some pictures of Emma in her Christmas dress (Sophie was sleeping).

The Monday before Christmas we went to Uncle Ted and Aunt Deb's house for a dinner and to act out the nativity for FHE. Here are our 2 angels.

We attended our first BYU basketball game as a family! Even though we lost (to Utah - boooooo!) it was still so much fun. The girls really surprised us by being very attentive to the game. We had thought we would need to leave by half time but they loved every minute of the entire game. Made mommy and daddy very proud!

The one sad part of December was saying goodbye to Citlali. She went home the week before Christmas and won't come back until the day before going into the MTC. We have loved her like a sister and will miss her so very much! But we are excited for this next adventure in her life and so proud of the choices she has made.

This is a picture of 4 generations......I'm wearing my Grandma Clyde's dress from the 50-60's and pearls from my mother.

During Christmas Eve day we got to babysit our old neighbors and Emma's really good friend Malik and his brother Rajid. It was so fun to see these two playing together!

For Christmas Eve we drove up to Grandma and Grandpa McCoy's. Sharla and Dal just moved to Utah the week before and it was fun to spend a little time with them too. The kids played, we ate a yummy dinner, decorated cookies for Santa and opened our Christmas pj's.

We decided to stay home by ourselves for the actual Christmas morning so we could focus on our little family. Emma is finally old enough to get really excited to open presents. Sophie still cared more about chewing on the wrapping paper than she did most of her gifts. Emma got a kitchen set as well as make up and Frozen panties. Sophie got a couple new toys to climb on. G got a gun and I got a new camera (yeah!!!). The biggest surprise was from my parents and G. He is taking me up to WA when Matt gets home from his mission and then we are leaving the girls with my parents and going on a week long cruise to Mexico. I'm sooooooo excited! It was a wonderful Christmas for all of us.

We woke up to a blanket of white snow Christmas morning. It continued to snow for several days. The girls loved going outside to play and enjoyed it for about 30 minutes. After a few days of snow I'm ready for warm weather! haha