Christmas 2013

Christmas Eve Grandpa Kirk came to visit!

He brought fun little gifts and games.  We had a great evening being entertained by him!  He always makes everyone happy!

Cracks me up that Kam chose the sunflower seeds for her first gift!

Tanner is the master Lego builder.  He can whip together a set in no time.  It's really fun to watch him build!  He loves Lego's and he's so good at them.

I guess the kids were all on the GOOD list because Santa ended up coming during the night.  He had quite the set up to put together ;)

But before he came we did our traditional Christmas movie and popcorn.

The kids slept to a decent hour and woke up with giggles and plastered smiles that weren't easily removable.  Christmas morning is THE BEST!

We make them wait on the stairs and then all run into the basement together.

Gasps, screams, excitement...pure joy erupts in the room and it's so fun to watch!

Tanner 9, Kambrie 4, Bree 1

(finding a game Santa installed on his x box)

After the giftbags are opened and wrapping paper cleaned up into trash bags...we are ready for the day!  Yummy breakfast, snow play, gingerbread houses (which proved quite difficult for the boys ;) and lots of bustle over all the new loot.

Daddy had to take a shift at work so we all went into CALO and had lunch and played some ball.

 Christmas was a hit.  We are so blessed to have such abundance, but remember it all has come from our loving Father in Heaven.  We will never forget the true reason for celebration.  We are so grateful for the life of our Savior.  What a beautiful gift, the ultimate gift of all!

The weekend before we took a trip to St Louis and stayed in a really nice hotel, Embassy Suites, totally out of our league (thanks for hotel points) and went to Churck E Cheese where we met up with the girls birth mom's and their family.
We LOVE getting to see them and spend time.  We had a little Christmas right there in the restaurant exchanging gifts.  It was a lot of fun!

We wish we had the opportunity to see Tanner's birth mom.  We miss her terribly.
We just love and adore our birth mom's more than anything!!!  They mean the world to us!!

 

 

Then that Sunday before Christmas our awesome music leader in Primary had the cutest costumes to use for the kids to re enact the birth of Christ.  We sang songs and acted out the story.  It was adorable!!

Our little Primary is so fun.  I just love these kids so much!  It has been so fun and such a blessing in my life for me to serve as the President and feel the sweet Spirit of these children every week.

(Ethan photobomber)

We had some awesome experiences choosing a family in need to adopt for Christmas.  We really wanted our kids to understand the true meaning of Christmas of giving and serving.  They came to the center with us to pick a family and helped every step of the way buying new gifts, giving up items of their own, wrapping the gifts, and delivering the presents.

I'm grateful we had this opportunity to help, and let our kids understand the importance of it.  They LOVED it and have such big hearts.

(a few bags of misc we donated to the center for them
to use for other families in need as well)


Our Christmas cards

I love the Spirit of Christmas and try to carry it through all year long.  It's been a wonderful year of 2013 and we continue to receive so many blessings.

We ended the year on New Years Eve

reflecting on all the goodness in our lives and enjoyed 

laughing our heads off as we transformed ourselves...

Family Five Strong!!!

(our family motto)

(each finger represents one of us and then we close our fist 

and join together for a fist bump and cheer!  ha ha!)

I LOVE THIS FAMILY WE'VE CREATED!!