Christmas 2014

We were fortunate enough to spend Christmas and Christmas Eve this year with the Wings up in Bountiful. Because it was so close for us, we decided to stay in Provo until the evening of the 23rd and then stayed until the 27th. Nothing too crazy or out of the ordinary happened, but it was such a wonderful holiday.

We all were together, minus the AWings, on Christmas Eve for a beautiful dinner and most of us ended up spending the night at Robert and Dianas. The highlight of the evening was probably singing Christmas carols, or opening crackers. I love that the Wings introduced me to crackers. They are so much fun! I love them. The prizes this year were pretty swank too. We all had to act and told a joke but the best joke teller was probably Holden. "My clue is book. My word is To Kill A Mockingbird" and then he sat down. The best actor was definitely Emily with her impression of Fiddler on the Roof. Good times had by all.  I wish the AWings could have been there too, but we all got some pretty great laughs from cracker opening.

This fruit dish was too gorgeous to not take a picture.

I have officially decided that ham is so much better than turkey. Like so muc

h better

And by some miracle we woke up Christmas morning to snow on the ground. The whole week had been in the 40s and even 50s and then a storm rolled in. It was beautiful.

Ethan's family wakes up very happy. I do not. Ethan was nice enough to prepare me for Christmas morning by waking me up about 30 minutes before Kelsey woke up. He came in our room and said "I know you probably want to keep sleeping, but I thought you'd want to wake up so you can get ready to be around people." It sounds really sharp, but I thought it was one of the sweetest things he has ever done. And yes, his family wakes up every happy. I could learn a thing or two from all of them.

 Kelsey sleeps amazingly well at the Wings house and at 8 am we were all getting really excited and tired of waiting for her, so Ethan and I woke her up.

It took her a minute to realize what we were saying but then when she saw what Santa had brought, she was sold. It was so exciting. I thought Christmas was fun as a kid, but its so much more fun as a parent.

After we looked at Santa stuff, the Mannings came over and we all took turns opening gifts. This is minus the AWings and Robert and Diana, but there's the whole crew.

Everyone was so kind and generous to Kelsey. She had so much fun opening presents and wanted to play with everything immediately. She got a little overwhelmed and tired of waiting so we had to take a break from her gifts. She literally said " No more presents please." I felt really bad because I wanted people to know how touched we were, but she was just so tired and wanted to play. We need to remember that for next year. She was also super cute because she kept wanting to thank Santa Claus. It really concerned her that she couldn't give him a hug.

Kelsey helped Ethan and I wrap our presents and she was so excited to give them to us

On the evening of the 25th, the Smiths and Mannings had to leave, but the Wings got into town. We had a wonderful Christmas day dinner and then went to bed. Everyone was so exhausted. The next morning I got to go day after shopping with Andy and Annie and they helped restrain me from buying too much stuff. It was super fun though to be with Andy and Annie.  We had a whole day with Andy and Annie and decided to do our sibling gift exchange then. We had munchies, Andy and Ethan tackled each other in the snow and we played a game in which I got a little snippy and felt really bad, but the game was fun.

 Holden made everyone gifts. I got a BYU hand warmer, the baby got a soft rattle, and Ethan got a really cool car. Maybe the best gifts of the year right there.

During the gift exchange, Diana prepared a plate of chocolates for everyone and passed them around for all of us to enjoy. A few were taken and then the plate was put on the table. About half way through the gift exchange, I thought I would check on Harper and Kelsey (since we all got distracted and forgot to take notice) and I looked up to find Kelsey grabbing the last chocolate from the plate. The girls ate EVERY SINGLE CHOCOLATE OFF THE PLATE!!! No one actually knows how many they ended up taking but it was at least 6 a piece. They ran away from the table laughing hysterically.  About an hour later, we were all opening some gifts and playing games when Reo was like "where are the girls?" Good question. We were all upstairs and again no one had seen them for about 20 minutes. We heard gleeful screaming coming from Diana's room, headed in there only to find the bathroom completely flooded!! The girls had turned on the tub, would get in the tub "swim around"  jump out and run to look at themselves in the mirror. They were soaked and so was everything else. Both girls spent some time in time-out.
The next day Diana was talking to Kelsey about being naughty and eating the chocolates. Diana asked Kels how many she ate and Kelsey was like "3. 5. um I don't know. I being sneaky. Shhh!!" That little stinker! She is hilarious and she and Harper together are one dynamic duo.
I don't really have a favorite Christmas but 2014 was up there with the rest of them. We had great food, got some snow, played lots of games, finished a puzzle, sang songs, and were all together. I am so grateful to be apart of two really wonderful families who want to be together over the holidays.