Tuesday, January 7, 2014

A HUGE, memorable family Christmas

This was our family Christmas!  15 people consisting of 2 families from Michigan, 1 family from Vegas, two little boys first Christmas and lots of cousins.
 
 
I was so excited to finally be able to host Christmas for my family.  I was ecstatic to have everyone in our home for the week, but man...it got crazy!!
 
Before everyone got here we had to do some high priority items to get ready for them to arrive, like making decorations AND

 
visiting Santa Claus!  (Negative mom points for me not getting Cole to see Santa on his first Christmas.  Poor third child...I feel sad for him) 

 
But even if he missed seeing Santa, he didn't miss out on collecting lots of loot!!!

Vanessa, Evan and baby Owen were the first of the family to arrive and the last to leave.  We were SO thankful they spent 10 days with us.  It was such a treat and I soak up every minute of I can get knowing our time together is so short and spaced out.

This was the first time Cole and Owen met.  Yay for cousins!!!  I have no doubt next year they will be causing all sorts of boy havoc.

My parents arrived in time to go with us to the Christmas Eve service and prepare for Santa's big arrival.


We have not all been together for a Christmas Eve in at least 4 or 5 years so it was a big deal!
 
 
Last year my mom started the tradition of leaving reindeer food out on Christmas Eve and the girls were all about that!  They are such a fun age.  We looked at the sky trying to see if we could see Santa and Clare was sure she saw him.  She went to bed happy as can be knowing she saw Santa!



















We had some big highlights that I did an awful job documenting while everyone was here.  But here are some favorite things we did:
- My mom and aunt took the girls to build-a-bear
- We all went to see Frozen while LD watched Cole and Owen all by himself
-We played lots of games after the girls were in bed
- We went to Founders Hall to see the singing bears
- We played with new toys
- We laughed a LOT
-Mommy got a break from giving baths :)
 
I will admit, I was exhausted when everyone left and my house looked like it had been taken over by animals.  But I promise I would give anything to do it again every year.  It was such a blessing to be together as family!

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