Christmas

For some reason I haven't been very motivated to take pictures or do a good job journaling our lives lately. I guess it wasn't a New years Resolution for me but maybe should have been :) 

I just love Christmas. With family, time off work/school, a husband home for 2 weeks straight, and good food, what's not to love?! We were thoroughly spoiled again this year by family and you could tell that our kiddos are definitely the only grandkids on both sides! Wow, and thank you again Grandma's and Grandpa's!

But to start off the holiday's the kids got to decorate the tree!

 Ethan was very particular about where each ornament was placed and Ellie was a good helper bringing them to him. Thank goodness I spent the extra money to get non-breakable bulbs last year!

Ethan was all into the Christmas spirit of things. 4 yrs old is such a fun age for the holidays! For example, one day he very creatively made Ellie's rocking horse into a reindeer, made the towel into the reins, and the pillow into the sleigh while he pretended to be Santa and dropped off toys to all the boys and girls from all over the world. It was so cute!

 Two days before Christmas, we headed out to Bass Pro Shop to check out all the fun Christmas stuff set out and of course to see the big man in red himself. The wait was only 3 hours so we decided to leave to have lunch at Justin's parents house and then came back to explore everything before our designated time. 

This store is so awesome. No, I'm not into buying outdoorsy stuff or anything but the fact that they had so many fun things for the kids to do for free impressed me enough!

Ethan loved using the bow and arrows to shoot down the ducks, playing with the remote control cars, and both kids loved riding the carousel.

 After the activities, we used their adorable winter wonderland decorations to snap a few photos of the kids. Seeing as I'm from Texas and Justin from AZ, this is about as wintery as our Christmases get!

 And then it finally was time to meet Santa Clause. Ethan was beaming from ear to ear to meet him and had all his important papers ready to give him. 

He gave Santa his wish list and throughly explained to him exactly what he wanted. Just incase that wasn't enough, he actually drew Santa a picture of the dragon castle that he wanted and made sure that he understood exactly which one it was. I'm sure the parents behind us in line were rolling their eyes but who can hurry a cute kid like that?! Not I. 

He is one smart little boy though. After he met with Santa he asked us, "So why do all the Santa's look so different?? They aren't the same Santa." I started laughing but luckily Justin came up with a really good explanation. Isn't he too young to be questioning things like this?!

Ellie was out cold when it was her turn but I made Justin jump in for a photo with her and Santa in the background. 

Wouldn't ya know it that as soon as we were leaving the store she woke up and I ran back to see if they would let me throw her in for a photo. They did and these are the awesome photos we got. 

I know. Pretty awesome, right? This picture kinda reminds me of another great picture taken of Ethan when he was about the same age...

Priceless. 

Some other highlights of the holidays:

• Annual Christmas Eve Fireside with Grandma and Grandpa Chapman. We love this holiday tradition and Ethan did awesome singing "Christmas Bells are Ringing" in front of everyone.

 

 

• Christmas Eve Brunch with the Smith side of the family. I chipped my front tooth while eating a banana?! What?! No worries, it got fixed.
• Christmas morning- Santa came and Ethan was impressed that the reindeer actually ate the cold broccoli we left out for them. Ethan got his beloved Imaginext dragon castle, a scooter and everything else he could possibly hope for... Spoiled? Maybe.  

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Ellie got a barking toy dog, a purse with all the accessories, and lots of Elmo stuff. They were sad to leave their toys when it was time to go over to the Smiths but they were spoiled even more over there! We went to church with them and spent the rest of the day hanging out over there. 

Justin and I decided not to get each other anything for Christmas since he had just gotten me a brand new stroller for my birthday at the end of November, but of course that never happens and I got him a tool chest and he got me (well, us) tickets to see Wicked that is coming in February. We are SO excited for that one! One of these years I'll think of getting him a cool present like that :)

• The day after Christmas, the whole family left to drive up to Vegas for a little Lyndon Smith Family Reunion. All of Justin's siblings (and spouses) were there, minus Elder Nate in Taiwan, so it was a ton of fun! We stayed in a WorldMark and basically just ate, played games, swam, and read books for that week. It was nice to relax!
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Justin took the whole family to the strip one night and gave them the tour (he's a pro with all the foreign groups that he has had to take there) and then they went to the show Ka. I happily stayed home with the kiddos since I've seen it all before, and finished the first book of the Hunger games. I was hooked and finished the other two pretty soon after. So excited for the movie by the way. Anyway, we came back to Phoenix the day before New Years Eve.

• New Years- we fell asleep on the couch while watching New York's new year celebration and then laughed afterwards at how boring we are. All our other married friends were out having fun with other couples while we fell asleep by 10pm.  How sad is that? Oh and we also decided that night that we really don't have any married friends because we are too selfish with each other. Haha. I guess that kinda happens when your husband is out of town for half the year... we tend to just want to spend time with each other when we actually are together!

After that weekend, life has gone back to normal. Ethan is back in preschool, and I'm helping out in the classroom, he started his Let's Play music class again and also began his Little Athletes sports program. Ellie went back to her normal napping schedule and loves being my little buddy. Justin went back to work and back to traveling and I am still teaching TurboKick and loving being a mommy. Life is so good!