Christmas Day

We definitely had a white Christmas this year. We easily got a foot through the night on Christmas Eve.

 We were all so excited for Christmas morning. 

Rockwell wanted a treasure box from Santa again this year, and Tessa wanted a walking doggy. He also surprised Rockwell with soccer nets and Tessa with a bike.

 We had a nice, relaxing time opening presents and playing with them as we went.

 Rockwell even took the time to figure out the mechanics of how his Pez dispenser works and explain it to me. :)

 Rockwell made me a frame using his fingerprints to make Christmas lights, with a picture of himself in the frame at school. I love it!

We headed up north for the afternoon and evening, stopping at Grandpa Barth's first. The kids had fun playing with the floating soccer ball he gave Rockwell.

Then we went to Grandma and Gramps Clark's house for dinner and more presents.

 Rockwell kept coming and telling me how much he loves his truck the rest of the night. 

 And Tessa was in heaven with her Pucci Pup. She named her Cha Cha and absolutely loves brushing her hair and carrying her around in her purse.

We celebrated Christmas with the Barth/Robbins family Sunday night. We all had a great time visiting, playing, eating dinner, and opening even more presents.

The kids love their yo-yo's. Rockwell's gotten pretty good with some practice. 

 The week of Christmas is always a lot of travel and late nights for us, but we love spending time with all of our family.

Christmas Eve

We spent Christmas Eve at Grandma and Grandpa Ham's house with all the usual festivities. We had a delicious dinner, followed by acting out the nativity. My children choose to be the audience. :) My dad always read the Christmas story out of this Bible.

We watched a beautiful Christmas video and played Christmas Bingo,.

Tessa played with the adults. And showed us how strong she was. Haha.

 Next we did the Grab Boxes.

 We ended the night with exchanging gifts. We all loved the generous and thoughtful presents we received.

It was a great Christmas Eve!

House Guests

Al and Keith and their kids stayed with us while they were in between selling their house in West Valley and buying their new one in Provo. The oldest 3 kids shared one room in the basement, and Hallee slept with her parents in the other room.

Rockwell and Tessa loved having their cousins live with us! They had a lot of fun together. 

Caitlyn was very sweet to share all of her Beanie Boos with Tessa.

We got quite a bit of snow. Rockwell, Wyatt, and Tessa had fun playing in it and helping me shovel.

And they all loved the hot cocoa when we went inside.

Sadly, a few of us were quite sick, so it wasn't the party Al and I had planned. But luckily the last night we were able to stay up later with Al and Keith and have some good laughs. Paul modeled his ugly Christmas sweater for us. With his blonde hair he looked like a life-size Elf on the Shelf. :)

Letters to Santa

We got our letters to Santa sent out just in time. It was fun that Rockwell could write his own letter this year. I remember having Rockwell write a letter to Uncle Cade on his mission when he was right around Tessa's age. Every time I would ask him what he wanted to write in his letter, he would just name letters. So Uncle Cade got a letter with a lot of A's on it. :) Tessa did the same thing when I asked her what she wanted to write in her letter to Santa. In addition to asking for a walking doggy, her letter had a lot of A's, T's, and S's. :)

 

Thanksgiving

Rockwell had a Thanksgiving program at school on Wednesday. They sang a lot of cute songs and everyone said what they are thankful for. Rockwell said he is thankful for his teacher, and he thought it was so funny that she said, "Aawww!" in response. I'm thankful for Mrs. Farr too. She has been a great teacher for Rockwell, and a great teacher is priceless.

We went to my parents' house for Thanksgiving dinner. It was delicious!

The kids had fun playing with Dante and Alexys before dinner.

Mel and her kids came over after dinner and we did Tessa's birthday party, ate pie, and played games. It was a very fun Thanksgiving.