Christmas Day

So Mom and Dad learned a very hard lesson this year: Not to procrastinate.  Long story short, we ended up staying up late on Christmas eve, until the early hours of Christmas day, until 4am and got a few hours of shut eye before the kids woke up.  We turned the basement into Santa's Workshop, building away.  The end result was worth it, but I promise to never let us wait till the last minute again.

 

 

We made a table and two chairs for Howie to build his legos on.  The top of the table had lego mats glued down with a lip around the table so that legos wouldn't fall off.  We decided to paint them primary colors, fairly common lego colors. 

 

 Livy got a dollhouse.  A huge one, about five feet tall.  Nice thing is that it is on wheels so it can move around easily.  Mom and Dad were too tired to put the wallpaper on the third level.  I told Livy she could help me pick out those colors later.  We also didn't finish the roof.  It was amazing that we got done what we did!  Again, lesson learned.

 Santa spoiled the kids with a new bike each.  They were pretty excited about those.  Now the patience to wait for good weather to ride them in.

 Livy also got some "girl legos" and not baby ones (large blocks) but "big girl legos that are little".

 Howie got more legos to add to his collection, the Lego City Police Station he had wanted to badly.

 Livy got some doll furniture for the house she got.

 We got some fun hats from Grandma and Grandpa Rushton!

 

The kids had saved up their money and had $15 each to buy each other a Christmas present and one of the parents a gift.  It was fun to take them to the store and shop secretively for each other.  The other good lesson was teaching them that they didn't have enough money to buy certain things. 

 

Howie ended up getting Livy a set of pom poms she had been wanting and a poofy ring.

 Livy got Howie an Angry Bird hot wheel car and a Lego board game called Minotaurus.

 Howie bought mom a pack of 20 silver earrings.

 Livy got Dad the Soul Surfer DVD.

I think that was the most fun of Christmas because the kids were super excited for us to be excited about the gifts they had specially picked out.  Super meaningful. 

 

We then spent the day calling family and sharing the good news of the future baby. That was fun too.  Mom went back to bed and slept for a while.  Never again will we pull an all nighter on Christmas Eve.

Christmas Eve

Christmas Eve at Grandma and Grandpa Schulthies' house annually consists of acting out the Nativity. Grandma even has the cool costumes for the kids to do so.

 

 The kids with a little gift from grandparents, as they will be getting matching pj's at the family reunion in January.

 Us telling our family the wonderful news, that we are expecting.  We wrapped up a baby bottle and let Grandpa Schulthies open it.  He was very happy for us.  We weren't expecting the reactions from the rest of the family.

 The Nativity

Our little angel and shepard

 This years' nativity included a nice touch, a live baby boy (played by Trenton).

 Grandpa Schulthies reading from the bible, the nativity story.

What a lovely cast. I remember dressing up each year.  How time flies.  The next generation of cast members.

Howie's Birthday

Howie decided to have another lego birthday party. I'm glad he likes them enough to keep adding to his collection and have another lego themed birthday party. We thought we would try having his birthday on the Saturday before Christmas Eve, thinking maybe more of his friends would be able to come. It is about the same as Christmas Eve. It is just a tough time for friends to come to a party. The holidays are just busy. We had a great show of support from family, which was nice. We had a good time. Mom has decided she is not very good at cakes, better at cupcakes.  We had some games building legos, moving them and just plain creating with legos.  I think everyone enjoyed playing with legos.

 

Howie loved getting more legos as presents.  He was pretty excited about them.  He even liked the lego board game he got. You have to build it first and then play.  Cool concept.

 Happy 8th Birthday Howie: Blow out your candles!

 

Happy Birthday Howie.  We love you!

Snapshots of Christmas

We love Christmas time around here.  There are so many fun things to do at the Holidays, blogging them would make me worn out, so here's a snapshot, just so we remember some of the fun times.

 

 At Howie's school class for his Christmas party.  I took lego cupcakes for his class too for Howie's birthday and we sang to him, then Santa visited.

 

Making Gingerbread Men

Our Annual Caroling on the Bus, where extended family loads up the bus and we go a-caroling.  I absolutely LOVE this tradition and hope we are able to continue it for a long time.

We usually seem to find Nutcrackers (since that is one of Howie's loves each holiday season). Both of the kids found a life-sized one to take a pic with this year.

Wise or not so wise?

Tommy was asked to be a wise man in our ward's Christmas party.  One of the wise men couldn't do his part, so they plugged an Angel in instead.  Tommy borrowed a real beard from a coworker.  It was so cool.  No one recognized him. 

 

Sister Facer, Weston (my brother) and Tommy 

Tommy had to leave his mustache on until Wade came over later that night.  He wanted to show Wade up.  It was the battle of the stache.  I think Wade won because Tommy's face was extra sore for days after trying to remove the facial hair.  The glue apparently worked too well.  Maybe not so wise anymore.