Christmas Eve Eve and Christmas Eve

Christmas Eve Eve or Saturday rather, we had Daryl's siblings come over for dinner.  The kids were excited to see their cousins.  Tyler, Avery, and Harper had much discussion about Mario Odyssey and Zelda strategies.  Avya did a great job of harassing Sisko again, and was ready to open all of our presents.  We had a great time with family as always.

  Christmas Eve we went down to my parents to have dinner with DeAnna and Brad.  Adam, Angie, Logan, and Ben joined us for a little bit too because Logan was busy napping up a storm.  Then we had some snow that prevented us from staying longer too.  Our neighborhood becomes a mess in the snow, so we thought it best to leave sooner than later.  Fortunately we had put down some snow melt on our driveway before we left, so with only a minimal amount of sliding we were able to get into our garage.  It was too bad that the evening was cut short, but we did enjoy the time we did get to have together.

Tyler and Emery helped Avya unwrap her Christmas gift.

The box wasn't stopping Avya from getting to her Christmas diapers.

Emery hamming it up for the camera.

Avya

Luke

Aimee passing out presents to kids.

Avya, Luke, Emery, Harper, and Avery in the background decorating sugar cookies.

Luke really liked his gift of crayons and colored pencils and immediately used them.

Harper with her cousin gift on Christmas Eve.

Luke complaining about receiving gifts on Christmas Eve. 

Lady supervising gift giving.

Hey look Brad was there.

Mom and Dad overjoyed with the Roomba the kids pitched into give them.

I finally remembered to get the children in front of the Christmas tree for a picture with varying degrees of success.

Luke made it into the picture under protest.

Then left the picture.

Harper and Emery watching the Christmas pyramid.

Luke and Emery watching the pyramid as well.

Daryl keeping the Lazy Boy warm.

Avery showing off the cool light up bracelet that she made from the kit that she got from her cousin.

December So Far

We did all the typical stuff so far this month.  The girls made a gingerbread house.  I took Emery and Luke to the Reindeer Festival at the Cougar Mountain Zoo where Emery was thrilled to see Santa and Luke ignored him.  Avery and Harper had their first piano recital of which there are no pictures.  Harper had a first grade winter concert of which there are no pictures.  Emery and Luke had their preschool Christmas program.  They were both way into singing their songs and were very animated. Daryl and I were surprised by their performances.  We hadn't ever seen them so in to something.

  We went to the Museum of Flight with Adam, Angie, Logan, Ben, DeAnna, and Brad where we saw Santa again.  Logan wouldn't get near Santa and was crying vigorously, but Luke sat on Santa's lap with merely a look of indifference this time.  Then we went to our Christmas party at church and brought along Christie, Ben, and Zander.  Zander and Luke played a lot at the party and earlier at our house together.  They are becoming good friends. 

Emery at the Cougar Mountain Zoo.

Harper, Avery, and Emery working on the gingerbread house.

Behold! The gingerbread house.

Luke with his preschool class.

Emery with her preschool class.

Harper, Luke, Emery, and Avery with Santa and Mrs. Claus.  Harper had a letter for Santa.

Avery with Santa at our church Christmas party.

Luke playing at the museum of flight.

Emery and Luke in a helicopter at the museum of flight.

Having fun with photo props at our church Christmas party.

More fun with props.

Zander and Luke not getting into trouble together at our church Christmas party.

Harper's gingerbread house presented on construction paper with water colors and crayons.

Harper's reindeer.

Harper's Santa going down the chimney.

Harper's gingerbread girl.

Harper's gingerbread house she made at school with her second grade buddy.

Harper felt we needed a greater sense of decorum at dinner and created this list of table manner rules.
We are to chew with our mouths closed, don't use our fingers, be gracious, and do not touch other people's food.

Here's the Christmas tree.

School Pictures

Harper

Avery insisted on wearing her sparkly scarf and her Shopkins jacket because it made her look beautiful.

Avery in an outfit of her own choosing.

Emery looking so grown up.

November

   November is birthday crazy on both sides of our family.  In our family alone we have Luke's birthday on the 6th, Avery's on the 12th, and mine on the 25th.  For Luke's birthday we went to McDonald's and let the kids play at the play place for about an hour.  They loved it.  Avery's birthday we actually had Daryl's siblings and their family come over for a big early Thanksgiving and birthday celebration.  Our nephew Tyler's birthday was October 24th, our niece Avya's birthday is November 17th just like her dad.  We had a fantastic time.

   Thanksgiving we had a full house because everyone wanted to meet baby Ben, so Alex, Chris, Hudson, Nellie, Paul, and Reagan were here.  Unfortunately Daryl and I caught a pretty bad cold, and we were not as fun as we should have been.  My birthday was the Saturday after Thanksgiving and the kids had a great time because we spent another November birthday at McDonald's.  Daryl and I were still not feeling great, so we just decided to take the kids to the McDonald's so hopefully they would get tired and leave us alone.

Luke celebrating his third birthday at McDonald's.

Avery dressed up like Twilight Sparkle at Luke's birthday.

Luke in his birthday crown he got at preschool.

He loved his crown and wore it until it broke.

Avery on her ninth birthday.

All the kids roughhousing with Adam on Thanksgiving.

For my birthday I got a pedicure and manicure from Avery and Harper, so I had four colors of nail polish on.

Avya making some art.

Tyler and Avery blowing out their birthday candles.

Luke and Avya also got to blow out candles.

All the cousins except for a napping Hudson hanging out with Angie and Ben.

The cousins hanging out on the stairs.

A non silly photo.  Starting at the top: Logan, Emery, Reagan, Harper, Luke, Hudson, and Avery.

We recreated the picture of Hudson, Luke, and Logan that we took three years ago when they were babies.  The original photo is below.

Here's the original picture of Hudson, Luke, and Logan.

The girl cousins thought they needed their own picture too.