Christmas

December was a pretty exciting month. Jeter understood the whole Santa/naughty & nice thing. So I enjoyed reminding him ALL the time about how he has to be good or he's gonna get on the naughty list. Too bad he only has an attention span for about 5 minutes. He would act really good for a couple minutes, then start fighting with Jerzi, then I would remind him again. (Given... Jerz is the provoker EVERY time.)
It will be an even greater day when Jerzi understands it all.

Here's Jeter with Santa at our ward Christmas party. He acted all tough and got in line with some of his other buddies, and when it was his turn, marched right up and sat on his lap. I thought, wow, he's doin really good. I didn't think he would do it. Then Santa asked him what he wanted for Christmas, and Jete froze. He had it all planned out what to say too. He was gonna ask him for a black toy dirt bike, and a new monster truck. But when Santa asked him, he got a look of sheer panic in his eyes and just stared into space. Santa patted his back and said, "It's ok, I'll give ya a candy cane anyway."

Good ol' Santa!

Jerzi wouldn't even go near him, so we decided not to even attempt it.

These bad boys consumed all of my time for a good half of the month. We have to make our Christmas presents for my side of the family, and so I got this dumb/cute idea from pinterest, and my sisters, to make wreaths for the back of the chairs in my parents dining room.

They were really easy to make, but took soooo long (mainly the red ones). I made 3 red ones, and 3 red and white ones. The red ones are made out of tissue paper, and the red and white ones are out of yarn. These are just on the chairs in my kitchen. I wanted to see what they would look like before I shipped them off to my parents.

I bought this sweet kit to make a gingerbread house. It came with the gingerbread, frosting, candy and tray. Super sweet right? So we start decorating it....

although some unamed peeps were just hoarding the candy so they could eat it.






The finished product....
kind of
We didn't have everything quite on it yet, but it was starting to slide, so we snapped a picture.





CRASH!!!

Right after the above picture was taken.

Yeah, super sweet gingerbread kit.

So they have a really sweet subdivision here that has it in their HOA that they have to put up Christmas lights. So the day before Christmas Eve, we all got in our pajamas and went and picked up a little KFC and found a nice little spot to park. We all climbed into the back of our car, into the mounds of blankets we layed back there, and ate some yummy dinner. Then we drove through the neighborhoods with the kids up on our laps (shh, don't tell) so they could see all of the Christmas lights too. It was so awesome! Lights everywhere! I didn't even think about getting pictures of it though. Maybe next year.

Oh Christmas Tree, Oh Christmas Tree, you make me sooo happy.

I love Christmas trees and Christmas lights inside the house. It just makes it feel so much more festive and magical.

I did a really bad job taking pics Christmas morning, but I couldn't help it. I was so excited to watch every present everyone opened, that I kind of just forgot. Santa left this cute little rocking horse unwrapped though, and the kids LOVED it. They were so excited!

(Although you can't really tell in this pic, he loved it. I just didn't get any good pics of him Christmas morning at all.)

Jeter wanted to open every present under the tree, and Jerzi opened a few of hers, and then she said she's done. She didn't want anymore. And so she left to go play with the ones she had already opened. Lucky for Jete, he got to open the rest of hers, so they were both happy.

Christmas Eve and Christmas Day were fabulous. We just hung out as a family on Christmas Eve, and had our own little Christmas Eve dinner. Christmas Day we had to actually wake our kids up so that we would have time to open presents, eat, and get ready for church. Church was really good! Lots of Christmas songs, which I love. Then we came home and put the kids down for a nap, and packed our bags while they slept. When they woke up, we headed to San Antonio to visit Had's Aunt and Uncle that were there coaching the Washington Huskies who played the Baylor Bears in the bowl game. We visited with them, stayed the night in their hotel, and went and walked around and ate the next day and then came home. It was a fast, but fun little overnight trip, and so good to see family on Christmas. The next day Had went back to work and it was as if everything was back to normal, while our families were all partying it up. I love to spend Christmas with just our little family. The next few days though, ya definitely need to spend with the whole family!