Our Christmas Story

Is it already past the point to talk about Christmas? Probably. But hey, better late than never...right?

This year for Christmas we went out to Vernal to spend it with Eric's family. They sure know how to host a great Christmas! Before going though we decided to open a few of our presents at home so we didn't have to take as much and to get Mia into the swing of things.

A few of the gift we opened where from my mom.  She did a homemade Christmas this year and I think it was a HUGE success! Everything we got was so cute and well done. It's convinced me a little more in trying it. Now I just need to find my motivation to start early enough to do it.

My mom made me 3 different necklaces, the following picture being on of them. I loved them all!

And Eric got this shirt where it's a road map on the back so the girls can drive cars on it and give Dad a back massage at the same time.

Mia got this cute PVC pipe chair!

We left for Vernal a few days before Christmas and helped to get things ready, spent an afternoon making lots of holiday sweets, stayed up late every night playing games, went sledding and shopping.

We had a great Christmas Eve dinner and had a little program afterwards focusing on the greatest gift of Christmas; the Saviors birth on this mortal earth and His life and work while on it. After putting the girls to bed Eric and I played Santa and put together the castle we got Mia for Christmas. All Mia has been asking for is a princess castle. She even braved her fear of strange men (yep we're back in that stage) and sat on Santa's lap to tell him so. I couldn't wait to see her face Christmas morning since she got excited just talking about it.

Christmas morning came and the first thing she opened was her princess castle. Sadly, it wasn't quite the reaction I had hoped for, but she still loves it and has played with it everyday since getting it. This year Mia was a lot more into opening presents instead of opening one and wanting to play with it. She wanted to open everything so we let her open Livy's gifts as well as some of ours. We all had a great Christmas and enjoyed all the gifts we received.

The big gift this year was the go cart that Eric's little brother got from Santa. He asked me to take a few pictures of it at many different angles haha.

The rest of the day was spent enjoying being together, eating more food and playing more games!

Livy got this cute activity garden for Christmas that her and Mia like to play in.

After the Christmas holiday we came home in time for Eric to do all the work that had been dumped on him on his vacation days...lame and to get ready for our big New Years Eve party we were hosting. I would have never got it all ready without Eric's grandparent's help since they were gracious enough to come out a day before New Years Eve.

To my regret I only snapped this picture before the party began of the decorations I spent the afternoon putting up and with my iphone no less. Sad! However, all the 20+ people who attended said it was a lot of fun. We had lot's and lot's of snacky food, played games and watched the New Years Eve movie. We had so much going we didn't even get to pull out Just Dance before we rang in the New Year. It was fun to have everyone over in our new house and to actually have space for everyone!

Now the holidays are over and it's time to get back into real life, which I'm not too sad about. Is it just me or do the holidays seem to bring out the worst in kids? Now that I'm back to real life I've also got some projects lined up involving the guest bathroom and bedroom.

Also starting next week I'll be joining blogs with Sara over on her blog. I will still be posting family updates on here, but I hope we guys can all support us and follow us there if you aren't already. We plan on blogging about our experiences as mother's and wives, our projects and just making it a place where others can come and connect and get inspired!

Now that my novel is finished...Happy New Year!