Christmas

This was our family's first Christmas on our own.  While we missed having our larger families to spend time with, there was something kind of exciting and intimate about having it at our house with just us.  For Christmas Eve, we planned to take the kids ice skating.  Unfortunately, through a long chain of miscommunication, we got downtown to the skate rink only to find that it wasn't open.  So we told the kids we'd go on base and eat at a restaurant for dinner.  We got to the BX, which was open, and the restaurants were closed as well.  So we settled on Baskin Robbins in the food court.  Nothing was going right, but we laughed about it and enjoyed our ice cream.  When we got home we pulled together a dinner of appetizers.  After the kids were in bed, Nate had our Bishop and grown up kids come over to play 'Santa and his Elves'.  It was hilarious. We asked them to make a ruckus downstairs and ring bells and pretend they were delivering the gifts.  Nate and I went upstairs and woke the kids up to listen to it.  But we could not wake them up for the life of us!!  So funny!  Sawyer, especially, was OUT.  They finally woke up for the tail end of it, and went promptly back to sleep.  Oh except we made them come down and look under the tree before going back to bed.  They remembered none of it the next day.  Maybe we'll try again in a few years.  Haha!  

Christmas Eve wrapping party, complete with moose mugs and eggnog!

Christmas morning breakfast

On one of our snow days, a family in our ward who lives down the street joined us for some sledding and Wii.