Pre-Christmas Festivities

The Christmas season was kind of a blur for me this year.  It's always like that when there's a little baby in our home.  But we did manage to fit in a lot of fun, although we didn't get pictures of it all.  We like to get our tree up early so we can enjoy it as long as possible.  So the day after Thanksgiving Tristan put the tree up and strung the lights and then on Saturday we hung ornaments.

Carter with his ball ornament from his second Christmas

Ethan and Carter finding the perfect spot

Carter seemed to think that the ornaments were toys (Ethan was guilty of that, too).  So they got a lot of playing with this year...most of them survived to see another Christmas!

Our elf was busy getting into all sorts of fun places this year.  I didn't take many pics, but Tristan had lots of good ideas this year.

So we usually go to The Barn to see Santa and this year I spaced on when he was there and when he wasn't.  I got the boys all pumped up to see him and then we got there only to find out he wasn't there that day.  They were so sad.  Then the next day I found out Santa was coming through our neighborhood on the firetruck.  We bundled up and ran out fast to catch him.  The boys stood in the driveway and we could see the trucks coming.  Then all of a sudden, they flipped on their lights and turned around and headed off to an emergency call.  The.  Boys.  Were.  Devastated.  I was sure that after two days in a row they were going to be traumatized by the thought of Santa.  We went back in and explained the best we could, but they were upset. 

  As we were reading stories, I heard the truck coming back.  So we raced out there again (this time armed with fire hats).  They were so excited that Santa made time to come back and see them.

 The truck finally made it to our house!

 This was the best I could do for a Santa picture this year.  So grateful for our local fire department.

A better view of the truck

 We decided to do gingerbread people for our decorating this year.  These are Ethan's and Carter's.  You may notice that they had already enjoyed some treats off of their gingerbread boys...

 These are Tristan's and mine.  Tristan's cracks me up.  Bloodshot eyes...grinding teeth.  Can you tell a dad who isn't getting much sleep made this one?  LOL

 I even found a little baby gingerbread boy for Ashton!

 These pictures of the boys in their Christmas jammies crack me up.  This is real life, folks!

 Enjoying candy canes from the fire truck visit.  I should say we caught the fire truck a second time when we were at my mom and dad's having dinner a few days later.  The boys were thrilled to see Santa again!

We also did our annual drive and look at Christmas lights on Christmas Eve.  We love enjoying family traditions while celebrating our favorite time of year.  We are so grateful for the joy that comes as we celebrate the birth of our Savior.

Day-After-Thanksgiving Fun

This picture was actually from Thanksgiving night, but I thought is was so cute that Carter likes to hold the scriptures and help "read" them during our family scriptures and prayers at night.  He's getting so big!

 I headed out as early as my body would let me to grab some Black Friday deals and Tristan stayed home with the three boys and tackled the leaves that we had been neglecting (sooooo glad we don't have to do the yard maintenance at our new house).  He got some pretty cute pictures of the boys having fun in the leaves.

Tackling each other...these boys love to play rough!

 Love that smile.  And that kid.

 Of course, there was some throwing of the leaves as well.

 Ethan made a "leaf angel".

 Buried in leaves!

 I managed to find some Christmas jammies.  Our Elf comes the day after Thanksgiving so we can spend as much time as possible enjoying our Christmas traditions.  They boys were excited to wear them (and still like to wear them even in March).

They were pooped out that night and once I looked at the pictures on the camera I realized why!  I was so excited to start the holiday festivities with my family!

Thanksgiving

It seemed like everybody was kind of up in the air about their Thanksgiving plans, so I decided to be crazy and offer to host Thanksgiving this year--with a newborn baby....Luckily, I delegated and had a lot of help from family and it ended up working out great. I had relatively little that I was responsible for cooking.  That meant I still got to enjoy my morning with my family watching the Macy's parade and could accomplish what I needed to do on commercial breaks.  ;)   I was really appreciative of everything everyone did to help out.

The table all set for the feast

Grandma Bernard brought some fun treats to keep the kids busy while we finished getting dinner ready:

We had attempted these Oreo turkeys earlier in the month but I forgot to buy double stuff Oreos and they didn't work very well.  I was glad the boys got the chance to make them again.  :)

They also made some gumdrop turkeys.
Carter with his gumdrop turkey

Ethan is obviously super thrilled about Oreos--he'll tell anyone that will listen how much he loves chocolate.  Especially Oreos.

Enjoying the fruits of their labor

Aunt Desiree being entertained by the crazy boys

I found these fun turkey crafts at Michael's so the boys did them as well.  It was kind of tedious work for Carter's little fingers, but luckily he had Grandma for a helper!

My mom, dad and brother also came, but between dinner, clean up and crafting I just didn't do well taking pictures this year.  Oh well, I guess that means I can only do better next year!  :)  We were grateful to get to spend time with both sides of our family for Thanksgiving this year and for the fun memories!