Sunady Best, Graham Cracker Houses, Santa Cookies, Christmas Jammies

The Sunday before Christmas was quite lovely- no meetings, no calling obligations... It was the first Sunday we had in a long while that we had nothing but sacrament scheduled for the day. That meant I had plenty of time to take pictures of my children in their Christmas Sunday best but the added time was not helpful. There was a lot of whining from all and some crying from Lucy. Lucy had to go upstairs and calm down and then finally, we got some good shots. I thought with older kids this was supposed to be easier.

On Monday, I attempted to accomplish cleaning and some things but a friend came over and kind of spoiled my plans. I did manage to squeeze in a run before going to pick up my parents from the airport though. They must have brought the sunshine with them because it was a lovely, warm day. Deciding to enjoy the warmth, we all walked down to the library. It was a little chillier on the way back but we warmed ourselves up with a classic Poppy dish of meat and potatoes. That evening the DePlonty's and Farquharson's came over and decorated graham cracker houses with us. They're good people and I enjoy their company. The kids didn't spend too long decorating houses but they had fun playing hide and go seek outside in the dark, playing "don't eat pete" and also pinning the carrot nose on the snowman. It was a good evening.

I spent most of Tuesday in the kitchen. And also had to make 2 trips to the store for forgotten things- so not on top of things. It was really nice having my parents there because they kept the kids entertained. Poppy even took 3 of them on a walk to Kroger's and Burger King- and those places are not so close. Early afternoon we had our fancy meal that both Tyler and I had slaved over. He had done the turkey for the first time ever. Everything was real delicious and he did a good job on his first ever turkey- really moist and flavorful. 

After our fancy meal we decorated Santa cookies. Even Grams got in on the fun and decorated a few. This time we really had a talk with them about not trying to give Santa diabetes with an excessive amount of candy and icing decorations. For the most part they did pretty good.

When we finished decorating cookies we opened up our Christmas jammies! The boys all got "You have died of dysentery" Oregon trail shirts. They were a hit! The girls got matching unicorn jammies. Tyler had bought me a Christmas unicorn shirt too but it didn't come until 2 days after Christmas. I was real disappointed that I didn't get new jammies for Christmas Eve. It's tradition for us all to get a pic in our new jammies :(

When we finished our jammie pics we all piled into the suburban to drive around and see the Christmas lights in the neighborhoods. We found a fancy neighborhood that was all decked out in lights and Poppy was impressed with the large houses. We also found a house in our own neighborhood that had it's very own radio station with lights that turned on and off with the music. It was pretty fun and Steven said that his friend's grandpa owns that house and spends months setting it all up.

Then it was time for bed and Steven must have complained a thousand times about how much he hates Christmas Eve because it's sooo hard to fall asleep. I think he's lucky that he only has one day a year where he struggles to sleep. However, I was in bed by 11 and he was definitely asleep then so he must have figured it out.

Us grown ups watched "It's a Wonderful Life" while setting up gifts and when it ended it 'twas off to bed for all of us.