Christmas at our House was BUSY as usual but a bundle of fun with little kiddos! I think it gets more and more enjoyable each year with little children to enjoy the season with. There is nothing more fun than sharing in the childlike magic and excitement that this time of year brings. As I see them experience it, I am brought back to my childhood when Christmas always seemed to be this enchanting, dazzling time of year when anything could happen. And although Santa Claus was a big part of it, I could always feel the Spirit of Christ a little stronger around the holidays and particularly enjoyed the beautiful music around our house, reading about Christ's birth, and reading the daily stories of service and giving in our countdown to Christmas book. Now that I have children of my own, I am always trying to balance those two things together: Santa Claus and Christ's birth. I yearn for my children to feel the magic of not only what presents they will get from Santa, but also the absolute miracle that the Savior's birth gave to us all.
This year some of the things I have loved include:
*hearing Maddie from the backseat singing Christmas Carols
*watching the beautiful Christmas program in church--including a duet that my husband sang in
*walking around temple lights hand in hand with Jesse
*talking with the kids about Jesus birth
*watching my kids play with our Little People nativity and being extra soft with Baby Jesus
*discussing what the Star on the top of Christmas trees siginifies
*preparing Christmas goodies to "give" to others
*helping Maddie pick out special gifts for each of her Aunties and Uncles
*preparing a special lesson for my Nursery children about the Savior
*attending the annual Sheffield Xmas Party--this year hosted at a park which was a fantastic idea!
(and LOVING spending time with my cousins)
*watching all of our Christmas movies again and again
*hot chocolate and Santa Claus at our church Christmas party
*showing Miss M that there is "Christ" in the word "Christmas"
*reading The Christmas Story on the eve of our Savior's birth
*hanging our stocking from the landing between each flight of stairs with ribbons!!
*staging the toys with the hubby night before Christmas
*listening to continuous Christmas music for the past month
*having tons of time off work the past few weeks and being able to run/work out at least four times a week= I LOVE IT to put it mildly :)
My kids have not yet hit the "wake you up at the crack of dawn for Christmas" stage of life so I was able to sleep in fairly long and we finally ventured down the stairs around 8:45am to look at our loot. I will forever cherish the priceless looks my children had frozen on their faces as they saw all the fun new things that were just for them. We had a fairly relaxing morning at our house that consisted of playing with new toys, making fresh squeezed orange juice with Mr R, eating Kitty Marshall's homemade cinnamon rolls= YUM, watching Jesse take a nap on the floor, continuously cleaning Eli's sticky candy cane hands, seeing Maddie push Eli around in his new stroller while she pretended to be his Mommy, seeing Maddie jump up and down when she opened her "Pillow Pal", witnessing Jesse's surprise when he found out Santa had brought him a longboard, and dressing the kids in their cute new Christmas clothes!
The post-Santa pre-morning Christmas:
Our beautiful real Christmas tree: so thankful for Nona, Papa and Abby for coming with me and kiddos to pick out this beauty. Papa was so nice to bring it in and set it up on the stand for us!
Mommy and Daddy Santa items
{I think Santa may have been trying to send Jesse a message about our toilet situation at home...hmmmm}
Maddie's Santa Loot
Robby's Santa presents
{the train table is NOT new, just the train set on top. Santa was resourceful and instead carried his old one downstairs}
Eli's Santa gifts: I was so happy that he received a new stroller; we somehow managed to lose all of our other ones and haven't had a single stroller in several months!
I love to see a Christmas tree full of presents underneath.....totally takes me back to my childhood. It is especially full because it has all the gifts for our extended family filling it as well
The kids on Christmas morning before walking downstairs to find out if Santa came. Note: Robby was extremely excited in the first picture and after the Jesse snapped another 20 he wasn't quite so pleased to smile and act excited. Instead he quickly transformed into a grump and gave us his perma-frown until we finally let them head downstairs ;)
The boys love love loved the train set and have played with it constantly ever since: I totally heart toys like this
We finally dragged ourselves over to the in-laws around 1:30pm and opened more presents with them {and I say dragged because we had to practically force our children to leave their presents to visit family}. One of my favorite things about presents is watching family open up particularly meaningful gifts we have given them. An all-time favorite would have to be a few years ago when I scanned in all of Jesse's mission pictures and put them on a CD for him= his face was incomparable, something I don't think I will ever forget. Someday, when I am no longer working so much, I want to do things like that more frequently. So right now, I am limited to only a few gifts that I can actually make/come up with that fall in this category. This year, I was incredibly excited about making several cute magnet boards for my two sissy-in-laws. It was fun putting them together and finding unique broaches/charms to make into magnets for the boards. I hope they like them as much as I enjoyed putting them together! One of my faves that my kids got from Nona, would have to be the darling knitted hats that she made :) and Maddie has sure enjoyed wearing her "fancy" pink gloves that Aunt Abby gave her {she even puts her CTR ring over them}.
Another picture that I am totally digging: my two boys giving each other loves with Papa joining in as well :) Eli kept giving hugs back and forth with Papa and Robby during this photo op
Maddie was so proud of her new makeup set that she got from Santa and brought it over to Nona and Papa's to showcase to the Aunties. She went to town and offered Abby a full makeover that included manicure with nailpolish and filed nails, and applied lipstick and eye shadow to beautify her. She was so proud of her work an even dragged me over to take a look at the finished product!
As you can see, Maddie had a thing for the gloves.
My cute little boy right before opening Uncle Adam's present! I cannot believe how grown up he looks in this picture....crazy. It's like he has suddenly transformed from this awnry little toddler to a boy.
-has to one of my favorite pictures of the day-
All too soon it was time to head over the next set of grandparents for more present opening and Christmas dinner. Although it was chaotic to put it mildly, we had soo much fun with my family! There was presents being opened everywhere and kids playing with toys everywhere. Baby Zack and Eli were so nice to share their new toys back and forth with each other :)
Several months back a huge blessing came to my parents, when my mother was able to get a full-time contract position with a company doing simple computer programming. It came right on the tail of my father being laid off and was truly a godsend for them. I am so proud of the effort she has portrayed through these few months with working full-time out in Scottsdale, completing her college classes this semester with straight A's, and working on an additional programming project part-time for my cousin at night & on the weekends. She is definitely a great example to me in displaying hard work with an exceptional attitude about it. One of the drawbacks that I selfishly feel, however, is the loss of my daily communication with my mother and my kids really miss having their weekly "Grandma day". I used to talk to her on an almost daily basis about the nothings and somethings that went on each & every day, and my children loved having her come over and tend while I slept. She had to be the funnest babysitter ever. She always brought books to read, fun crafts, and would crawl around on the ground and pretend with them. They still talk about all the fun things they used to do with Grandma and always ask when they will get to have another "Grandma Day." On Christmas I sure appreciated the "gift" of being able to spend some more time with Mom even if it came with all the madness that the day entails. A favorite present that my kids received over at the Sheffield home was unique Church bags my mom sewed for each grandchild with their initials embroidered on the outside with laminated activities, crayons, coloring books, and other quiet goods for Church inside. I cannot even believe she was able to spend so much time on gifts for each of them; unreal. Before I knew it, it was time to pack up kids and head home so that I could get ready for work that night.....
Eli admist all the commotion during present time
Miss M with Grandpa during our tradition of opening up the gifts of Christ box. This has become a wondeful tradition that marks the end of gift giving at my parents home. It's always a great way to end gifts with reminders about the true gifts we have been given such as:
*the gift of understanding
*the gift of forgiveness
*the gift of the Holy Ghost
*the gift of eyes to see
*the gift of ears to hear
*the gift of hands to touch/feel
*the gift of a nose to smell
*the gift of a mouth to talk
*the gift of legs to walk
*the gift of love
*the gift of patience
*the gift of the plan of salvation
I am so grateful for the opportunity we have each Christmas to sit back and reflect on all the wonderful gifts my Father in Heaven has given us. I am grateful for healthy, happy children, for family to love, for arms to hold young ones when they are sad, for lips to kiss boo-boo's better, for fingers to tickle children as they laugh hysterically, for a voice to belt out music in the car while my kids laugh & sing along, for legs to dance on as we rock out with our "microphones" (wire whisks) to High School Musical, for a nose to give "eskimo kisses" to Robby each night as I put him in his bed, for eyes to read book after book to my inquisitve, entertained brood, for ears to whisper "did you know I love you so much?" into, which is always followed by "I have a secret for you too.......I love you Mommy" and for many more things I have been blessed with.
Uncle Tyler and cousin Zack
*I am so happy that Eli has a little buddy like Zack to play with. It warms my heart whenever I see those two cute boys running around playing together. On Christmas I was particularly happy to see them taking turns pushing each other around in the "kid van" on my parents lawn. I know even though we may not always live close together, that those two will always be best buddies whenever we do get together.
Robby really LOVES this tricycle that my parents keep at their house and thoroughly enjoys to take it off-roading down the steps, over the lawn, into the rocks, across the flagstones, and up the other side of the patio and has actually gotten very good at this little loop around the backyard :)
Another favorite part of my parents house would definitely have to be their trampoline. The kids naturally congregate to it and enjoy scaring all the adults with all their "dare-devil" tricks
{this would actually just include my children with their crazy tricks, not Lori's--although watch out Lori, I think Zack might turn out to be a little trickster :)}
Miss M was quite proud of her candy necklace kits she received in her stocking from Santa Claus. She made this one all by herself and boasted that she made it in an ABC pattern.
We hope everyone had a fun-filled, relaxed, family-centered Chrismas!!!
