School Fun

Luckily, Will's school is far more fun than I could ever be.  He had a school Christmas program where all the kids got on stage and danced and sang to "Santa Claus is Comin' to Town".  It really was quite entertaining.  Then in January they had a school carnival and the kids had a ball, especially Lucy.

Christmas Morn

Christmas morn.  All were up nice and early, with one little four-year-old who was quite ready to open up some presents.  I love Christmas, but I especially love Christmas with kids and even more so with kids whose excitement is both tangible and contagious.  

The waiting-on-the-stairs-forced-to-take-a-photo pose.

Lucy and her Santa present.

Santa brought Will his dada's legos, also building him a police boat and car with said legos.  Will was jazzed.

Lucy got a few new books.

Will with his present for dada.  Will helped wrap the present and then wrote on it to say who it was from (and who did he say it was from?  The UPS guy, of course.  It was too funny when I saw this--he just assumed that is who the present was from since that is who brought it to our house.  Click on the photo and you can see it written in marker above the tag).

The kids enjoying their splendor.

And Lucy enjoying the baby Jesus' cradle, sitting in the stable that Josh built (for the ward Christmas party years ago that we keep stored in our basement).

And if that isn't the cutest face there is, then I don't know what is!  Merry Christmas, says our cute little Goose-bug!

Christmas Eve

Christmas Eve:  the magical night, laced with anticipation and longing.  Ours was magical, as usual, though we were missing our VT cousins.  We had friends over for dinner and a nativity, then did Christmas Eve presents and stories with our cute little family.  Then Will got to sleep in Lucy's room with her (in the extra bed that's in there--not in Lucy's crib) and he loved that.  He was so excited for Christmas; it truly made the night magical.

Christmas Attire Photos

One morning before church, I was running marginally ahead of schedule, so I thought I'd snap a few photos of the kids in their Christmas attire in front of the Christmas tree.  Of course, I needed hours, not minutes, to get a good photo and since I had not that kind of time, this is what you get.  You choose which photo is the best:

I finally had to bribe Will with a Hershey's kiss, but I only had one, so I bribed Lucy with a piece of discarded waffle that I found on the floor (don't you judge me--she was jazzed to have it and ate it all up).

And after church, Lucy was being so cute, I had to snap some photos of her in her onsie, tights, diaper cover and church shoes.

Our "good enough" Christmas tree

Only six weeks late--but here is our annual getting-the-tree-from-Lowe's outing.  We've tried a variety of ways to acquire our tree:  nice nurseries, cutting the tree down, and, of course, Lowe's.  And hands down, our best trees, and our easiest outings, have come from Lowe's (not to mention our cheapest).  So why mess with what works?  We loaded the kids into the truck cart (and Josh had to race the kids precariously in said cart), found us our perfect tree, loaded the tree on the car and headed home.  The decorating of the tree was a little less simple.  Josh was gone for the day but our tree had sat undecorated for a few days, with Christmas boxes strewn messily about, so I foolishly tackled the decorating by myself (well, it would have been easier by myself--I tackled it with three kids in tow--we were watching an additional one-year-old).  Will was helpful--though he placed ALL the ornaments in a small four-by-four area of the tree, but the two one-year-olds?  Not so much.  They basically undermined everything we did--took off everything we put up and threw fits when we had the audacity to place their stolen ornaments back on the tree.  But we finally got 'er done (ornaments in one concentrated area and all), only to have an entire strand of lights burn out two days later.  But at that point I was over it.  So, this year, I called it our "good enough" tree, because that is exactly what it was--good enough!

And now the pictures:

Racing in the truck cart.

Is it really possible to get a good photo of my kids?

The tree.

Dada and Goose with the tree.

Goose and the tree--she was ever so helpful (and yes--I think she wears jammies all day on far more occasions than I like to admit).

Will and his hat hair.

I had to include this photo for two reasons:  one, the kids were being so cute putting up their Santa and snowman gel window treatments and two, check out what Lucy is wearing.  That is what Josh dressed her in on this day--the onsie OUTSIDE the pants.  Nice.

Will threw the lights on the tree and said:  I did it--I put the lights on.  If only it were that easy, buddy.

And here are a few snapshots Will took of the tree and decorations.  Not bad, eh?