Christmas 2013

What a fun day!  Ethan woke up excited as can be at 8:00 and then came and snuggled in our bed for awhile waiting for Caden to wake up!

Ethan and Caden were just thrilled that Santa had come!  

Quinn walked around with huge eyes throwing one hand in the air and kept saying, "wow."  

My favorite quote of the day was when Ethan said, "how did Santa know that costumes are my favorite toy?"  He got a huge box filled with costumes and dress-up accessories and was so excited to try on each one.  I think he was 10 different characters at different points of the day.

Donkey and Diddy are now up there with Brown Dog as his new best buddies.

Quinny wasn't super interested in his toys, because he couldn't get over the candy canes!  He walked around stealing candy canes from each stocking and then carried about 6 with him at all times, licking them through the wrappers.

Caden, our little budding artist was thrilled with all of the new surfaces to write and draw on.

I was so surprised to get a new camera for Christmas, a fancy one.  So I spent the rest of the day trying to figure out how to take some decent pictures on something other than my phone.

The boys were so proud of the gifts they had picked for each other.  It was pretty sweet.

Lots of big hugs were given!

You can't catch a mid-blink drool face on a phone camera!

Clark spent a lot of time in our freezing cold garage last week building the boys a toy box.  They loved it!

When Caden put on these glasses, he said, "I like them because I look like Sam."  Sam is his favorite cousin.

Later that night after our epic snowball fight that I already posted, Clark surprised the boys with another pinata!  We had expected some other friends to join us for it, but they were sick...so the 3 boys had a great time with the pinata all to themselves.

Such a fun family day!

Very Merry Indeed!

Christmas Eve

The boys were so excited in the days leading up to Christmas, pretty much bouncing off of the walls.  This is how I found Caden about 10 mins. before our Christams Eve festivities were to begin.

We had our friends Marc and Melody over for our traditional fondue dinner!  They brought their traditional lasagna, so it was quite the feast!

Clark bought these awesome "goblets" for us at the Dollar Store that morning.

The boys were so excited to have an actual pregnant Mary for our nativity play.  Ethan said he wanted to be right by Melody, so I assumed he wanted to be Joseph...he actually wanted to be the donkey.

And Caden really wanted to be the angel.

We watched the Nativity movie and then had dessert.  Ever since Ethan's first Christmas we have had the tradition that on the boys' first Christmas they show up at some point on Christmas Eve wearing this Santa suit.
Ethan's first Christmas:

Caden's First Christmas:

Quinn's First Christmas:

And although this was Quinn's second Christmas, the outfit still fit so we had to do it again!

This time Santa was on the run!

We all got to open new Christmas jammies, and then the boys were tucked into bed.  And then the fun really started...
This year I had all of my Christmas shopping done before December 1st.  Everything was thought out and planned and ready to go.  I had some gifts (kind of a lot) stored at my friend's house, who was out of town.  I ran over at about 11 to pick everything up, she had left me a house key.  Much to my horror, I discovered the screen door was locked, and the key didn't work in it.  I thought maybe I could get to the back yard, but the 6 foot fence had a huge padlock on it.  I seriously panicked!  How could this be?  This was not in the plan.  I started figuring out how to break in!  I was nervous I was going to end up in the slammer on Christmas Eve...how would I explain that one to the boys?  I enlisted our friends Marc and Melody...they came prepared with a box cutter.  In my panic I thought for sure the screen door was glass...it wasn't.  When the Steele's showed up Marc was able to very easily pop the screen out and unlock the door.  I was so embarrassed I had asked for help.  In my mind this was going to be a James Bond type mission that could possibly involve repelling, or kicking down a door...but I was willing to do it in the name of Christmas!

A Christmas Eve I probably won't forget anytime soon!

A Christmas Snowball Fight

This post is dedicated to Grandpa and Nada!  Thanks for the great gift and the great poem, we would have never guessed what was inside the packages!

Twas the night of Christmas and all through the house,

Not a creature was quiet, not at all like a mouse.

The stockings were emptied, and flung through the air...

Basking in the revel that St. Nick had been there.

And Mom in her jammies,

and Clark in his cap (a new BYU one)

had just settled on the couch,

for a much needed nap.

When from the basement there arose such a clatter,

we jumped off of the couch to see what was the matter,

And on down the stairs we flew like a flash,

Rounded the corner to discover the bash.

When what to my wondering eyes should appear,

but 12 fluffy snowballs grazing my ear!

A full snowball fight in the basement did ensue,

We built forts and made teams without further ado.

It was so much fun it went on for an hour,

Until mom was done and wilted like a flower.

It brought fun today, our indoor snowball fight

So Merry Christmas to all and to all a good night!

 

 

Doughnut Snowmen

This has become a tradition to do at some point before Christmas.  It was very fun this year to make snowmen with the Fowler family.  Caden's looked like it was ready for the Kentucky Derby.