Christmas 2016

Since we were driving home from the Kenyon's on Christmas Eve, we didn't do anything special for dinner.  We picked up pizza.  :)

Just us hanging out (the Mejia's were at church I think)

Making notes for Santa

The finished notes - not too wordy this year 

Reading a Christmas story with Dad in their Christmas Eve PJs before bed

Enjoying these candies that bring back memories of Christmas time at Grandma Carlson's

Kimber and her kids got in pretty late.  I was grateful Kaitlyn helped me with the monkey bread prep.

Peter also did a more savory monkey bread

Working hard on food prep for tomorrow

Ready for Santa

Santa got everything out and ready.  Max's pile is on the left with the karaoke machine and Emmalyn's pile was ridiculous with a tramp, puppet show stage, puppets and more

Christmas morning all ready to get out and see if Santa came!

Here's the pile of presents around the tree.  With 11 people in the house, there were a lot of presents!

Maxwell's pile

It's here!

Emmalyn's pile 

The whole room

Emmalyn immediately went for the baby doll

Excited about his new toothbrush

Tyler (all grown up) getting a shave kit

Kait getting grown up girly stuff

New tools from the Mejias

He was really excited about his karaoke machine (and the 80's cd he got because "it has all my favorite songs")

Joe is a hot sauce lover!

Kaitlyn helped put together Emmalyn's stuff for her dolls.  It was great having her help!

New remote control cars

Enjoying yummy monkey bread

Karaoke time!

Focused on singing (all I see is the MESS!)

The regular monkey bread was more popular than the garlic one

Playing with new toys outside

We delivered the final "12 days of Christmas" we had been doing for our next door neighbors - the Rays.  We did it in our pjs.  :) (Notice I still had sunglasses on. My eyes were awful.  I spent a lot of time in bed or sleeping on the couch because it was just so uncomfortable.)

Christmas naps - they are hard to resist

Puppet show!

All the boys had remote control cars

Christmas exhaustion

Emmalyn is exhausted too

Yup, more napping

Hanging out, enjoying presents and being together

We had our traditional potato soup for Christmas dinner.  Always yummy. (even if my kids won't touch soup)

Christmas Eve 2015

We held our usual Christmas Day celebrations with Brittany and her family on Christmas Eve since we would be leaving early on Christmas Day to go to the airport.  This will be the first time since they've lived here that we won't be together on Christmas Day.

"elf"ing a neighbor who had been missed (it's never too late!)

Dropping off another gift for a neighbor

Such a gorgeous day!  We enjoyed being outside in the sun without jackets and playing on bikes.  Max is too big for this little trike he got when he turned one but he still wanted to ride it.

Taking turns on the big bike

Ms Mary Ann and Mr Chris came over to exchange presents.

We had a yummy ham dinner

Silly goofs

cupcakes for dessert

video - Uncle Joe had Emmalyn cracking up

Time to open presents!

Max was slightly fooled when he opened his present and it was a gingerbread house decorating kit...but he kept going...

What?!  A minion shirt?? He was super excited

And a bey blade?  He was very happy

The boys liked the boogie boards we got them.

Opening the Christmas PJs

 

Writing his letter to Santa

"Dear Santa   Please bring my present that I want. From Max Millar"

All the kiddos in their PJs (Maxwell was checking to see if he had stinky feet)

Time to head to bed, cowboy

Peter knocked out around 1 am...  Momma was still going.  Christmas Eve is always a busy, late night but it was a REALLY late night because we had to pack for our trip to Utah, too.

Our house all decorated this year.

I didn't put all the decorations out this year but I still had lots out.  I have loved having the canvas pictures of Christmas's past as decorations.

Santa came!

Decorations

Santa's note back to Maxwell

Max's presents

Emmalyn's presents

Our door of Christmas cards.  It a fun reminder of how many great friends and family we are lucky to have.

Santa even filled up the stockings for Momma and Daddy.