Christmas Day

With so much going on....I am glad we snapped a few pictures to capture the wonderful time we had this Christmas.



The girls anxiously waiting on the steps to see what Santa brought for them!



Here are the boys waiting as well.



Mady and Makayla see their stockings and are so excited!!!

Mady hugs her stocking she is so happy!

Santa must know how much Jordan loves lemon juice in his water. He got a huge bottle of it in his stocking! :)

Brayden looking through his stocking

The girls unwrapping presents

I got a fun new shirt....YEA!!!

Brayden opening his presents

For Christmas Brayden asked to adopt a live monkey. He adopted one....from an organization that helps monkeys. He got a stuffed monkey and a picture of a monkey that he adopted!

The boys opening more presents.

Grandma Diena made these cool hats for the kids. I had to get a picture of all of them. I think they are super cute. Thanks Grandma! :) As I reflect on this year I am overwhelmed by the numerous blessings our family has enjoyed. I am so thankful for all of my family and friends. We are truly blessed.

Christmas Eve

We had a great Christmas Eve this year filled with lots of family.



Keeping in tradition, we spent Christmas Eve at Grandma Jeri's for Adams birthday. We ate our traditional meal of spaghetti and meatballs. YUMMY!!! After dinner it's the magical musical number....dinging the bells. It is soooo pretty. ;)



This is my little nephew Kash. He got this cute rocking dog and for some reason he couldn't stop sucking on the little bell on the top of the dogs hat. It was so funny to watch.



Here is my Dad holding my nephew Stryker. Jordan is in the background laughing cuz my dad didn't know I was taking his picture until it happened.




So for Christmas, my grandma gave Mady a purse. Well aunt Pam thought it would be a good idea for Mady to remind Grandpa that a purse isn't complete without money. With that idea Mady decided to solicit everyone in the room for money. Dollar after dollar she kept going around the room. Once she hit Megan & Trevor they whipped out what every girl loves most....PLASTIC!!!! I have a feeling this picture is a sign of things to come. ;) I want to thank my family for being such great sports about it! You guys are awesome. NOTE FOR NEXT YEAR: no purses for Mady! ;)




After Grandma Jeri's it was time to head over to Grandma Faye's house. One of Matt's family traditions is getting together Christmas Eve for fondue. We were happy that Chuck, Shawna and the kids could be here this year! We had fun with Alaina, Matt and little Damon.




One of the things Alaina is famous for is her "gangster face". This is something that the family has picked up on and now we have to have lots of pictures of gangster faces.



Here is Andrea giving us her gangster face!



Here's Richards gangster face......WEAK!!! ;)



The kids were spoiled rotten this year. Here is Makayla with her earrings from Grandma.



Jordan is super stoked about his Game Stop gift card!



Grandma Faye scored the PERFECT present! Giraffe earrings for Mady. She LOVES them!!!



I just had to throw in this adorable picture of Evan in the box that Mady's basketball came in. He thought he was pretty funny with it around his neck. How cute is he???



Brayden got a Game Stop gift card too! They are so excited to spend these! Thanks Grandma!



We all had a great Christmas Eve. I am so grateful for family and feel so blessed to be surrounded by them all. Merry Christmas.

'Tis the season!

It's that time of year again right? Time to get all the decorations up and start the festivities. We finally got our tree up and decorated this weekend. Friday night we got the tree out and put up. I made the kids help out by fluffing it. This year Matt and I kind of stood back and let the kids take over that "fun" task. It was fun to watch them. At first, they were very excited. Full of smiles, singing Christmas carols and dancing around. By the end of the night though, not only did they hate each other but they hated that tree too! After sleeping on it, we decided we'd start decorating it on Saturday night. :) We finally got it done late that night.

I finished it when the kids were all in bed. I always love seeing the tree that first night. The kids woke up to the finished tree complete with presents underneath! Mady was way excited! She wanted to start opening presents.

Here are the kids with their advent candy calendars. They are pretty excited to eat their candy. Thanks Grandma Debbie for this fun tradition. We really love it!

Here is Jordan's 100 Grand advent calendar! Wow....he is a millionaire now! ;) I think it's pretty funny how many he put on there. I also love his cheezy grin in this picture.

I have no idea what the deal is with Brayden and his new silly smile.

I think Makayla and Mady had more fun with the little foam decorations then they did with the actual candy! Ahhh the difference between boys and girls right?

It's been a festive weekend and we had a lot of fun together. My favorite part of the weekend was my stunning duet with Brayden of the "pine cones & holly berries song" (aka It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas) I love it because it is the exact same song that I used to sing with my parents while we put our tree up when I was little. After we finished our big duet, Matt challenged us to a kick line which, if I do say so myself, we mastered! It just goes to show that it's the little things in life that matter the most!