The Long Christmas Post

This post is a doozy but I just have to document everything down before I forget!

Christmas was so much fun this year having my parents and my grandparents here all the way

from Texas! In preparation for their arrival, I deep cleaned the whole entire house- it seriously needed to be done. So I thought since my house was clean, I would finally take some pictures of our home since I haven't done so since we bought it.

This is the formal living room looking in from the door..

I can't wait to get some paint up on those walls!

The wall opposite from the couches

I think I mentioned last year how much I loved my nativity set and turns out, I am still in love with it this year :)

The family room...

View from the kitchen

Part of the kitchen

My mom really helped me out with giving me Christmas decor. This Christmas tree is one that my grandmother made for my mom about 40 years ago and now I get it.

And this little guy my mom made for me last year. Isn't he cute?

Oh and this is our half- bath just for kicks. It is still the only room painted in the whole house.

Moving on to the excitement of the holidays!

At our ward Christmas party, Ethan got to meet Santa!

Santa didn't sit down with the kids this year, it probably has something to do with the fact that we have like a million kids in our ward, but Ethan got his chance to tell Santa everything he wanted when Grandma Smith took him to the mall to see that Santa. Mom Smith said that Santa didn't quite know what to think when Ethan said that he wanted a Garbage Truck that says "FEED ME!" (Stinky the Garbage Truck) and a Whirlybird from Special Agent Oso. I just love 3 year olds, so easy to please :)

My family arrived on the Monday before Christmas and Ethan had so much fun playing with them. He and my mom are pretty good buddies and he is counting down the days until we go to TX in mid- January....

And no one could resist playing with this little chubby-cheeked cutie either...

Christmas Eve was spent at the Smith's house for their special Christmas Eve presentation. I love this part about Christmas. We are reminded about the true meaning of the holiday season and we get to hear all the beautiful talents that the Smith family has. I even participated this year with a duet on the piano with Justin . I participated very reluctantly, mind you. :)

On Christmas morning, the kids slept in til' about 9am (we were all up super late the night before). We will enjoy the late Christmas mornings as much as we can now :)

The tree with all the loot underneath it.....

Ethan LOVES this tool bench that the Smith's gave him...

And Ellie loves rocking back and forth on the pony that the Great Grandparents Sims gave her!

We thought that this present from us to Great-Grandma Sims was pretty fitting...

And books are always a good thing to give Great- Grandpa Sims.

I was the happy recipient of my very own steam vac (essential for when you have babies that spit up as bad as mine do), a rice cooker, recipe books, and some other things.

My papasito had fun playing with Ethan's GloDoodle- such a cool toy by the way!

Mom and Ethan had a blast playing with his farm set that they gave him. He has been in heaven for the past few weeks playing with the tractors, plowing the fields, and taking care of the animals. We have also had to refer to him as Farmer Smith for the past two weeks.. thanks mom.

My parents got Justin a compressor that he is super excited about and his parents bought him a garage storage system. It is the kind that hangs from the ceiling- really cool!

The last present that Ethan opened up was from Santa and it was his beloved Whirlybird! He was SUPER excited when he opened it and saw what it was! We have been saving up his chore money for him to buy it so he is now very excited that he can spend his money on other things now! We decided not to get him Stinky the Garbage Truck but convinced him that another (much cheaper) garbage truck was cooler. So he got that and is very happy. Win-win.

During the holidays, Ellie realized that ice cream is way better than anything she has ever eaten before and spent most of her time begging from person to person for some. She screams with anger and climbs up your pant leg until she gets what everyone else is eating. She is so funny. I think she might have inherited her love of ice cream from me... maybe.


The day after Christmas we had everyone, and I mean everyone over for dinner and more present opening. Rhonda & Art joined us from UT, of course my family, all of Justin's siblings (minus Nate who is in Taiwan serving a mission), and Justin's parents and grandparents.

More presents?!

Justin's dad and grandparents

Whew... it was a house full but it was so much fun! We love having people come to visit us!

After everyone left for the holidays, we just chilled and enjoyed playing with the kiddos. We took Ethan across the street to the park and showed him how to hit the ball off of the tee.

He actually could hit really well but seems to have quite the short attention span. Within 5 minutes he was having more fun watching and playing with his shadow. We just know that he will be the kid out in the outfield chasing butterflies in a few years. :)

Super long post but there was a lot of super fun memories to post about. Big thank you to our families for generously spoiling our kids (and us!) and for making this Christmas a special one to remember!