Christmastime 2014

Christmas is over already?  It snuck up on me this year, I think because it didn't really snow at all until Christmas Day.  As Coldplay tells us, "When you're still waiting for the snow to fall, it doesn't really feel like Christmas at all."  But we did our best anyway!

Cora REALLY wanted to put together a gingerbread house this year, so I picked up a kit at Costco one day.  The kids had a great time putting it together, even if it didn't turn out to be the most polished-looking house ever.  All they really wanted to do was put enough candy on it so that I could declare it done and let them pull it apart again and eat it.  Which they did 5 seconds after I took this picture.

 We went to the lights at Temple square one night in mid-December when the temperature was in the 50s.  It was crazy warm.  Dax even took his coat off for a while, until his mean mom made him put it back on.  The kids sat on the ground and watched the Nativity presentation, which is usually unthinkable.  We walked all around Temple Square, through City Cree, and even all the way down past the Gallivan Center and saw all the lights and the skating rink down there too.

I must admit, that even though I was missing the snow for most Christmas activities, it was pretty awesome to hang out at the lights for a couple of hours and not have anyone complaining of cold ears, toes, fingers, noses, etc. was pretty dang awesome.  

Before I knew it, it was Christmas Eve.  We did our traditional pizza at Grandma's, and then headed home at bedtime.  The kids were really excited to go to bed, since they know that the big guy doesn't come until they are asleep.  Even Cora, my little night owl, was trying so hard to go to sleep as soon as she got in her room.  I walked by her room to check on her, and her eyes were closed as tight as she could close them.  The storm was blowing in and it was windy outside, she opened her eyes and told me "Mom, I am trying so, SO hard to go to sleep, but the wind is stopping me awake!"  I turned on some soft music in her room and that was the last I heard from her.

I had a lot of wrapping left to do, so I was up until the wee hours of the morning getting everything ready.  I always like to take a picture of the tree on Christmas Eve, with all the presents ready to go. Here is the 2014 edition:

I finally got to bed between 1 and 2 a.m.  I got a blissful couple of hours of sleep, until Arden woke me up at 4 a.m. wondering if it was morning yet.  I told her NO, but I didn't trust her not to go wake up the other kids, so I made her climb in bed next to me and go back to sleep.  She proceeded to wriggle and wiggle, she was just so excited!  Preston was smart and headed for the couch.  Arden tossed and jiggled and turned and wiggled, she just couldn't hold still.  FINALLY, around 5:15 a.m., she dropped off to sleep and I followed close behind.  Without Preston around to keep her off, Olive decided she wanted to snuggle too and jumped up on the bed and laid down with her nose right in my face around 6:00 a.m.  I rolled over and went back to sleep...until Cora came in about 20 minutes later.  I was so, SO mean and told her it still wasn't time to go downstairs until the first number on the clock was a 7.  So, Cora climbed in the bed and joined the party.  One mom, two girls and a dog tried to sleep (or at least pretended to) until 7:00:00 a.m. when I finally gave up and agreed it was time.  We had to wake Daxton up, smart boy.  

I tried to get a picture of them running down the stairs (notice the dog in the back), but it was too dark and my flash didn't go off.  They didn't want to go back up and recreate the moment for some reason, so this is all I got: 

Dax had been walking the line between naughty and nice for pretty much the entire month of December, so he wasn't sure what he would find in his stocking.  He was so glad that it wasn't coal!  Cora was so glad too!  She screamed, "DAX!  I'M SO HAPPY YOU DIDN'T GET COAL!" and gave him a big hug.  Awwww.

 Olive had a stocking too (well, it was a random stocking we had hanging around, and Arden taped a piece of paper that said "Olive" on it), and so Santa left her some rawhide "candy canes."  She was happy.

Arden got a friendship bracelet maker, which was just what she had been asking for:

Cora got a singing Elsa doll!

And Dax got his Zoomer Dino!

 The kids exchanged presents, and Cora was so happy to get a little fuzzy Sven the reindeer from Arden:

 Dax got a Baymax (from Big Hero 6) action figure from Preston and me, and was so, so happy!

After we opened up our family presents and had our traditional healthy Christmas morning breakfast of cinnamon rolls and candy from our stockings, we headed to Grandma Haun's house to open more presents.  Here is Grandma with little baby Emmy in her cute Christmas outfit:

 After Grandma Haun's house, we went to Grandma Wilson's and Grandma Zaugg's too, but my picture-taking slacked off considerably as the day went on for some reason.  We made one last stop to see the Layton lights on our way home, since we hadn't done it yet.  The lights were so pretty with actual snow on them!!!

The next day we packed up and headed out of town...you guessed it.  To the cabin we went.  We took Olive sledding for the first time..she liked to run up and down the hill after our sleds, so Preston thought he would try to take her down the hill ON a sled.  Turns out, she didn't enjoy it so much.

The snow up here is way to powdery for snowman building, but Arden found some big ice chunks and piled them up and called it a snowman:

 It is cute and she is cute!

It has been snowing for the last couple of days, so we have just been watching movies, doing crafts, playing games, and venturing out occasionally for sledding.  We will probably venture out skiing sometime this week if it gets warm enough (forecast for tomorrow at Beaver Mountain is a high of 4 and a low of -13 with 20-30 mph winds gusting to 40..doesn't sound like good skiing weather to me).

It was a great Christmas and we are looking forward to lounging around until New Years!  Merry Christmas everybody!