Glenn and April & Family: Christmas

Okay so like I said a few posts ago...I really haven't been taking too many pictures, so this is what you get for Christmas. I guess we were having too much fun to pull out the camera. We had a fabulous Christmas. Glenn took almost two weeks off and we just hung around the house enjoying the down time.

Christmas Eve we had KT (sister-in-law)up for dinner and christmas eve festivities. Unfortunately Bil had to work, but we were happy that we got one of them there. After a nice dinner we sat down for stories, songs, movies, jamies, and the siblings opened their gifts from each other. It was a fun evening. The kids set out oreos and chocolate milk for santa and carrots for his reindeer and then they were off to bed and we were told to quickly get in bed ourselves so Santa could come. I love the excitement of Christmas Eve and the glee in our kids eyes.

Christmas Eve with Aunt KT

Apparently I have no pictures of Christmas Day. I think most of that is recorded on our video camera. The kids slept in later than I had expected...which was nice. We all went down stairs together and played with the goodies Santa had left in our stockings. The girls were excited about every little thing. And surprisinly Marcus was so happy about everything he got too. Santa left him a set of four balls outside his stocking. He gabbered until Glenn could get the box open for him and then he carried them around like he was the coolest kid in town. All grins. He is such a boy. I LOVE IT! Christmas morning was like a dream. It was slow paced and the girls could enjoy their gifts, but they were too antsy to get to the next thing, because we only had three kids to wait through until they could open another gift. They were so incredibly happy. Christmas with kids is the BEST! We then headed down to Grandma and Grandpa's house and had a delicious breakfast and opened gifts with them. The kids love being with their aunts and uncle and so they were happy to be in the middle of all the fun. Then of course Christmas dinner and hang out time. The whole day was quiet and lovely.

Here are a few pictures from throughout the Christmas season:

The kids loved decorating gingerbread cookies. Rebekah especailly got into using the icing bag and making patterns and such. I love kindergarteners.

Enjoying our cousins....one of the benefits of living in Utah.

Of course we made a gingerbread house this year. Rebekah decorated one side and Miriam the other, daddy did the icing, mom did candy control, and Marcus napped.

We like to make a Christ tree each year where we write qualities of the Savior Jesus Christ on our paper ornaments. Here is our tree this year.

My kids rarely fall asleep anywhere other than their beds. I am sure she is all tuckered out from playing in the snow. Once again...I love our backyard.

Some of our neighbors hosted an evening at their house where we could view their 50 plus nativities collected from different countries. They were amazing!! I loved their collection. They also had nurmerous costumes for the kids to act out the nativity. My girls switched costumes several times, but it has a hit. Here is Rebekah as a star.