Christmas and Birthday!

We had a wonderful, fabulous, extraordinary Christmas around here. I turned the big 2-6 the day before. I was spoiled wonderfully by my hubby and kiddos, including french toast in bed. Oh yes. It was divine.

We did a lot of cooking and cleaning on Christmas Eve and had a delicious Christmas dinner followed by frozen nutella hot chocolate and the Christmas story with the kids. Nate and I stayed up really late mainly to clean the house so we would have a fresh start on Christmas morning.

The next morning started at 6:30 when we headed down to open presents. We went slowly and it took pretty much until lunch time. It was so great to just lounge around and enjoy watching everybody open presents and play with their new toys. A sweet lady in our ward gave us a train that her son had gotten too old for - we're talking one with a tunnel and a windmill and a bridge, etc. I think that's his very favorite present. Nate surprised me with a new remote for our car (hooray!) and tickets to go see Wynton Marsalis and the Lincoln Center Jazz Orchestra when they come to the U in February, among other things!!! AHHH! He spoils me, what can I say? I made a Quiet Book for Addison and got a really good start on a scrapbook for Bryn. We also put together a new "family book" for Bryn with pictures of all our extended family. She loves it.

We missed being with our extended family, of course, but we very much enjoyed skipping out on the stress of traveling in the winter and trying to haul presents all over the place. We look forward to seeing them all before long, though, and we got to video chat with a lot of them on Christmas Eve and Christmas.

Here are some pictures - we didn't take too many because we were too busy enjoying living it.