A Christmas Surprise!

On Christmas afternoon after all the gifts had been opened, my Mom and Dad gave each of us kids a small wrapped box. The boxes each contained little slips of paper with a letter on each one.
My mom explained that they wanted to make this year a memorable Christmas, and to find out what we were going to do we had to unscramble the letters and figure it out. The only hint we had was that it was 3 words!

The first thing we spelled was "Trip to Chile," it was close but it didn't use all the letters! Weston spelled "Chill Together..." nope! We spelled quite a few things before we figured it out!

HELICOPTER LIGHT TOUR! When I finally figured out the word "helicopter" I felt like the crazy girl that won the National Spelling Bee a few years back! It was so exciting.

My parents had arranged for us to take a helicopter ride to see the Christmas lights of Boise! It was awesome!

We went in groups of 3, so I rode with James and Erica. Clark and I offered to be the couple that split up (in case it went down we figured out boys could have at least one parent).

Definitely my favorite way to see Christmas lights ever! It was so cool to see Boise from the sky, and the helicopter ride was really fun too! Ethan loved watching our helicopters take off and land. What a FABULOUS Christmas surprise! Thanks Mom and Dad for making Christmas such a fun and memorable time!

Christmas 2010

Christmas was a wonderful day! Ethan has been old enough this year to really get into all the festivities. On Christmas Eve Ethan and Caden were sleeping in the same room as me and Clark. Ethan woke up around 7:30, since we were waiting for James and Erica to come we tried to stay in our bedroom as long as possible. Clark tried to distract Ethan with a book, in the middle of the book Ethan yelled out Wanta came! He was excited!

Coming down the stairs!

I'm not sure what was going through his mind when he came down and saw all of the presents. He walked right past his giant inflatable fire truck and big "green present" that he had requested like he didn't even see it. I think maybe he was looking for his stocking from where he had left it the night before. Finally he found it! He was pretty overwhelmed and pretty excited. A few of his presents are still wrapped, he was just so content to play with his new things, he wasn't even interested in more.

Lovin the new Thomas track!

Ethan giving a gift to Caden.

A thank-you hug for Uncle Weston and Aunt Erica, for the fun Zhu-Zhu pet.

Checking out the new binoculars from Uncle James and Aunt Erica.

A golf themed Christmas for the uncles!

A few weeks ago Clark told me to not spend any money and just make him a Christmas gift. When I asked him what I should make him he suggested a diarama, well, that is what he got (he got a few other things too). Muah-ha-ha!

James causing mischief, this was before he almost knocked the tree down!

Some things never change!

The bag I made for my mom for her clogging shoes. Headband was the result of an embellishment gone bad!

The theme was running for this guy this year!

Thanks for the Thomas pillow Grammy!

In true Christmas Story (the movie this time) fashion we went out for Chinese food for Christmas dinner with the Vaterlaus family! (A tradition we started about 5 years ago).

Santa Baby was a cute center piece!

Fa ra ra ra ra, ra ra, ra ra!

Christmas Eve

Traditions make Christmas time so much fun! This year has been great. Being in Boise I'm able to relive my childhood traditions, start new traditions, and experience everything like it is the first time through Ethan and Caden.
My mom is the QUEEN of Christmas! Every inch of her house is decorated (including the dead animals that hang on the walls)! My mom planned so much to make Christmas Eve this year a great celebration. Hanging out with my brothers and sister in laws is the best! I had many moments when I laughed so hard I cried.
We started out the night listening to my favorite Christmas record from when I was a little girl.

My favorite record, and a Santa decoration that used to be my Grandma's.

We had a yummy fondue dinner like we do every Christmas Eve.

Towards the end of the dinner I snuck upstairs and put Caden in his Santa suit. I snuck him around the house without anyone seeing him and we came through the front door. Everyone was excited to welcome Santa into the house!

This little Santa baby has learned to officially crawl in the few weeks we've been here.

I think Ethan's face pretty much captures the mood of the night!

After dinner we all got to open new Christmas jammies!

In our comfy pajamas we acted out the nativity while my Dad read from Luke (a tradition we've always done on Christmas Eve). Ethan was Joseph this year and chose Grammy to be Mary.

When we were younger my brothers and I were in our Sunday School class at church, it was the Sunday before Christmas and our teacher was having everyone share Christmas traditions. I explained that my family always acted out the Christmas story (referring to the story of Jesus' birth). Another kid in the class heard "Christmas Story" and assumed we acted out the famous movie with Ralphie every year. So that has become a joke in our family. When James and Erica got married I got them an ornament for the tree of Ralphie wearing the pink bunny pajamas, I also made them matching bunny hats to start their own "Christmas Story" traditions.

Well this year Ralphie came to our Christmas Eve party!

James' suit is a custom made pink nightmare from his mission in Guatemala.

We played Christmas songs on the chimes.

Played some fun Christmas games.

At the end of the night Ethan left out some cookies and milk for Santa. He took a bite out of Santa's cookie, I'm sure he didn't mind.

Such a fun Eve!

The Week Before Christmas...

On the week before Christmas there is fun to be had!

You may find us...
Building a snowman!

Grandpa and Ethan made a big snowman!

Ethan in a cage.

Final Product...Look at Frosty Go!

Caden wasn't very helpful, but he was very cute.

Clark normally doesn't wear ties to build snowmen, but today was special.

You may find us watching Uncle James fly his awesome remote control airplane. We especially liked watching him chase the geese.

You will definitely find us eating goodies, ice cream everyday if you are Ethan!

You may find us shaking angry fists at the neighbor's dog when it took out Grammy's cute candy canes decorating the front yard. (Thanks to white duct tape they have now been fixed).

You can find us daily kissing and cuddling a cute little Caden!