Friday, December 30, 2016

DAY 1744... Christmas Time

Oh Christmas...


It's a little bit exhausting right?
It's fun and special,
especially with kids,
but setting up the tree,
taking down the tree,
finding matching pajamas for the entire family,
seriously,
why is this so hard and expensive,
being snowed in...
I sound like a HUGE scrooge,
but I think next year I would really like to simplify Christmas.

We spent Dec. 21st-23rd down in Utah,
looking at houses (SO EXCITED),


visiting Spencer's future work,
(has anyone been inside this building before? It is GORGEOUS!)


handing out Christmas treats,
and by treats I mean fruit,


and spending time with family and friends.
I always forget to take pictures of our friends and family...

We were able to spend time with Spencer's good friend Shellie from his mission who the kids and I had never met.


She is AMAZING!
And she gifted us with the cutest MSU gear!


How sassy and cute it this girl?

We were able to take the kids to Temple Square for their very first time!
They were really excited for the first couple of minutes,
then the cold and crowds set in...




We also ate some AMAZING food!


Can I tell you that I dream about The Philadelphian at least once a week?
It is my favorite and it never disappoints.
It's in Sandy.
Go there!!!!

We also did a little shopping,
of course,
but Aniston was over that incredibly fast!


Our favorite part of our Utah visit might have been taking Aniston ice skating for the first time ever!
She did so AWESOME!











We loved that our cousins came too!
Aniston is so excited to move to Utah to be closer to them.
She talks about it daily!




On Christmas Eve we had our traditional Graham cracker house building at my parents house.
This year's theme was Scotland in honor of Jake of course.


I chose the National Monument at Edinburgh.
I rocked it.


Aniston basically just dumped candy on her plate.
But it was a great effort on her part!

When we came home,
the Christmas Eve Elf had visited...


Aniston told us her version of the Christmas Story.
Favorite thing ever!


Afterwards she got the cookies and carrot ready for Santa and Rudolph,
and we also threw down some reindeer dust.




Christmas morning was really good.
The kids got pretty nervous when checking to see if Santa come though...
They really kind of hate that guy.



We learned that Benson is the slowest unwrapper ever...



The kids were so happy with their gifts!
I always get them too much.
Seriously,
simplify is my goal for next year!
Anyone with tips please send them my way!



But when it came down to it,
Benson just really wanted to eat Santa's leftover cookies.


Soon after presents,
we headed over to my parents house to talk to Jake.
But the amount of snow we received made it a very slow driving process.
So Aniston kept us entertained with her songs.


This was our last Skype call with our missionary!!!
It seriously seems like he just left yesterday!
He announced his official release date while we were talking to him!!!!




We are so excited to have him home so soon!

What I absolutely loved about Christmas this year,
was that it took place on a Sunday.
We got to go to church and really focus on Christ on Christmas and I LOVE that!


Benson had just woke up and was not happy about that.

Christmas isn't horrible,
and participating in the #LightTheWorld challenge really helped our family to focus on the true meaning of Christmas.
But like I said before,
next year I would really like to simplify Christmas and keep it very Christ centered and more about family as opposed to things.
We have enough stuff.

I hope your Christmas was amazing and magical!

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