sharing the gift

i love holidays! i love celebrating! i love spoiling my children and making a fuss over things and this year was no exception. landon understand some things and really gets the idea of presents and christmas. our friend jack the elf came to our house dec 1 and has brought with his fun and joy each day! primarily he brings christmas books [i wrap ones we already have and bought a couple new ones] but he's also brought fun crafts, ornaments to make, or just does silly things. from drinking syrup, riding a motorcycle or reindeer or even hanging upside down with a spiderman mask. that jack, he's a silly dude. landon looks forward to finding jack each day and seeing where he moves. landon has caught both of us moving him but luckily he is still a bit oblivious to things. jack brought us our magic christmas seed and as it would go, he also took down all of our christmas decorations and tree while landon and daddy went out on a date. jack is a hard worker, you know.

we did lots of fun things together with friends and family. i got a 25 days of christ ornament kit and so we learned stories about jesus [almost] daily. we had dinner with the irelands and built gingerbread houses. we went to the magical forest and rode the train [and had some delicious donuts]. we learned about the nativity story and acted it out with our little people nativity set. we sang christmas carols at the top of our lungs and made a TON of christmas cookies. we shopped and wrapped presents. and we read a lot of books! we love christmas books!

christmas eve we had a great play date with friends at the park [freezing- come on vegas, get it together. i like to wear flip flops in the winter] then i made a delicious turkey dinner for our family. christmas eve is usually the night we do a special dinner and program with my mom so this year it was all on me. thankfully it went quite well- nothing was burned! landon was very excited for santa to come. he left out about 12 cookies and some hot coco for santa. landon was up bright and early at 4 then again at 5:45. thankfully i convinced him that we should let daddy sleep in a bit until 7am. i made my delicious blueberry breakfast casserole and we opened our stockings we waited patiently. santa didn't spoil the boys rotten [they did go to disneyland and miami] but grandpa and grandma did. landon really wanted some peter pan action figures he saw at disneyland and he got some jake the pirate ones to go along with it. some of the favorite toys of the boys from christmas include: a giant army chair, two jake the pirate set of duplo legos, ninja and knight action figures, and some cool storybooks where it reads the story to you.

a few days after christmas we had a redo with aunt lyns and uncle skyler- where my boys once again got spoiled rotten! highlights here were a fireman costume complete with a bullhorn and fire extinguisher and then a spiderman car! i swear, my kids could start a car dealership. it was so much fun seeing family and hanging out. a few days later on new year's day we celebrated with justin's dad. throughout the whole christmas season, dave has made it his mission to make this year a camo christmas. ever since college, i have become anti-camouflage. i made the mistake of mentioning this to dave so he decided to throw camo at me at every opportune moment. leaving a camo christmas tree on my doorstep [landon loved the army men and airplanes] and then bringing me camo ice cream from baskin robbins [delicious]. he put a whole lot of time and dedication to making my life miserable. i felt so loved. that night everyone was wearing camo, decorations were abundant and almost every single present was camo related. things i didn't even think they made in camo, he found. he has a gift for torturing me.

in all we had a fantastic christmas and i really do feel loved. i have been blessed and i'm so grateful to celebrate our savior each and every year.