Christmas

We went to Furrow Farms to get our tree again and uncle Jerod was still in town from Thanksgiving and got to come with us!

Once again it didn't take long to find the perfect tree.

We let Jerod have the honor of cutting it down. :)

We took the kids with their cousins to see the lights at PIR and had a good time.

Ford Freestyle Express
I saw this idea on Pinterest where you print up these tickets that say "Minivan express, round trip ticket" (supposed to be like the Polar Express) and you put them in the kids' beds. Just as they get into bed and find the tickets, you surprise them with a drive to see the lights in their pj's with cups of hot chocolate and bags of popcorn. We took the cousins with us and drove down Peacock lane. Unfortunately the traffic was worse than when we've ever been before, but hopefully they still had a good time.

Stella was pretty tuckered out by the end of the night.

Christmas Eve
The Newsoms were kind to have us over Christmas even and we had their traditional split pea soup and corn bread and the kids enjoyed reenacinting the Nativity.

Carson was a wise man. Holden wouldn't participate, big surprise, and Travis was a Shepherd and Stella a sheep. Stella loved wearing the sheep costume, I think because it reminded her of her stuffed animal sheep named Po.

The kids got to open two presents on Christmas Eve, one was the traditional new pj's from mom and dad and the other was a gift of their choice. I helped Stella decide to open this Ladybug pillow pet from us. She loved it every time we went to Fred Meyer, so we had to get it for her, but it's amazing how it doesn't take much convincing for Travis to get Stella something she wants. I wish I had that same effect on him.

Decorating sugar cookies for Santa.

New pj's!

My parents gave us this gift which is a really cute new tradition for our home. You can write a message to Santa on the back of the mug and he can write one back. Plus there's a little bell on the mug so hopefully the kids can hear when he takes a drink of his milk.

The kids were really sad that our elf, Henry, would be leaving us that night, hence Carson's message. " I hope you take care of the elf. Holden and Carson"

Holden made reindeer food in preschool, so we set that out with everything else.

Church starts at 9:00, so we weren't sure how the morning would go. We thought if we opened presents before,we'd never get to church, and we didn't want the kids to wake up super early. Luckily they slept until almost 8, we got ready for church and they agreed to just open their stockings, and we covered the Santa presents with a blanket. They were a little upset about this until they opened their stockings and then they were fine.
They're all obsessed with angry birds right now and all of them got one in their stocking.

Holden's Santa presents.

Carson's Santa presents.

Stella's Santa presents.

The kids wanted to get back in their pj's before they opened the rest of their presents and they stayed in them most of the day.

We finally got a Wii!! Big excitement around here.

Stella's mini mouse doll was a big hit!

Holden of course got another garbage truck.

Angry bird blanket wraps.

Merry Christmas!!