Merry Christmas 2016

The Christmas season was fun and busy around our house. It was our first Christmas in our new home! Here are a bunch of pictures and videos that give a little taste of the season.

This year's family Christmas music video

Preston did his due diligence and helped Nate hang the Christmas lights. They did it before Thanksgiving, and it's a good thing! The roof has been covered in snow since then.

Addison and Nate have made the Messiah sing-in a tradition. They went to Abravanel Hall this year. I love that they're both giddy with excitement about it.

We made these cute little guys.

And lots of tasty treats.

We got these awesome glasses in the mail!

They turn the Christmas lights to reindeer and other fun shapes!

We strung lots of cranberries for our Christmas tree. The looks on the kids' faces pretty sum up how each of them felt about it. Bryn found her new calling in life. She strung berries all afternoon long and loved it!

We were interrupted by a visit from hand foot and mouth disease. Asa and Bryn were both miserable. Bryn missed a whole week of school. It was the absolute pits.

Nate had the great idea of rolling up a towel and using it for a pillow while Asa soaked in a bubbly bath. It seemed to relieve a lot of his discomfort, so Asa spent a lot of time like this.

We made and painted salt dough ornaments for our tree.

We sang and listened to tons of Christmas songs. The favorite discovery of the year was, "Hey Santa." Leah and Asa still sing it all the time. Here's Leah's version of "I'm Getting Nothin' for Christmas."

And the kids watched all the Christmas classics: The Grinch, Charlie Brown, Garfield, etc.

We hosted our first annual Christmas sing-in. We had a great group of people (including some of my sissies and co) come and sing and visit and share treats. I think it was a success!

Addison and Bryn brought down the house at their piano recital. They both practiced really, really hard and did a great job.

That same night we went to see the Roy lights.

We got to have Bri and Mason up after they finished their finals. They spent Christmas and several days afterwards with us. It was so fun to have them. Our kids adore them.

Asa watching Uncle Mason create solar systems.

Christmas Eve I turned 32!

We frosted cookies for Santa.

Christmas Eve night we watched "He is the Gift" that the church put out last year, and read the Christmas story from the scriptures. That video makes me cry every time I watch it. It is amazing that Heavenly Father gave us the gift of His Son. Because of that gift, so much joy and love is possible. I am so grateful for Him.

After the story we exchanged gifts.

Bri and Mason brought gifts for everyone! The kids wanted to stay up all night writing on their white boards and playing with their other toys. I love this picture because it is so perfectly Asa and Mason's relationship. They gave Asa a flashlight, and he was so excited about it. I love that Mason is grinning away while Asa blinds him with it.

After that we high-tailed it to bed so Santa could come! We had some kids who had trouble falling asleep. Nate went in to check on Addison and found him using his new whiteboard to calculate the number of seconds between that moment and the time we said they could get up in the morning.

Luckily the appointed hour finally came, and Santa did not disappoint!