Christmas and New Years Eve 2014

We had a wonderful Christmas this year! On Christmas Eve we made Santa cookies and read The Night Before Christmas before bed. Ashlynn fell asleep really fast, Dawson had a harder time. He was worried that Santa would skip our house because me and Dave were still awake (we were playing Phase 10... and Dave won in case you were wondering). We decided to head to bed so Dawson would relax and finally fall asleep. We weren't quite ready to fall asleep yet so we watched a couple of episodes of Last Man Standing (my favorite show!!) in our room. It was such a nice, relaxing night! Sometime after that Santa came!!!

The kids got up at their usual time (7am) so that was nice! They were excited to see what Santa had left them! They got a lot of fun stuff. Dawson said his favorite thing was his Jack Skellington Disney Infinity character and Ashlynn's favorite (which changes just about every time you ask her) was her barbie house and her wiggle car!!

We took our time opening presents and just enjoyed the morning.

 For breakfast I made scones (easy scones... by frying up some canned biscuits) and they were a hit! I've been looking for a breakfast that I could make our Christmas morning tradition and so far the tradition has been to try a new breakfast every year because I'm never quite happy with what I make. It's either too difficult or not yummy enough. BUT I think we found a winner this year with the scones! Next year I plan to make them a little more festive, I think the kids will like that.

We skyped with Dave's parents for a little bit, it was nice to be able to see them on Christmas. After that we headed to my dad's for a second Christmas breakfast, to open gifts, and just hangout with the family. It was a lot of fun! I hope he does a late Christmas breakfast every year, that would be another fun tradition to look forward to.

After we got home from my dad's we didn't really have much time before we had to leave to go to my mom's. They were making an early Christmas dinner, opening presents, and just hanging out. It was a lot of fun spending time with everyone. We celebrated Bronson's birthday, too, since it was his birthday!

After we got home and got the kids to bed Becca, Arika, and Travis came over to hangout and plays games. It was fun!

Christmas day was super busy but we loved being able to spend it with so much of our family!

The day after Christmas was extra nice too because we didn't have to be anywhere and we just lounged around and played with the kids and their new toys all day. I love the day after Christmas!

Here's Ashlynn playing with her barbie house.

And the kids playing with the sports game that we scored for free! We put it down in the basement and the kids have been loving playing down there. There's one huge finished room and the rest of the basement is at least insulated so it stays pretty warn down there. It doesn't feel like a basement at all. The school room actually gets colder than the basement does which is crazy to me but it makes sense because it's above the garage.

We put the kid's wiggle cars and power wheels down in the basement too so they can use them even though it's winter time. It's nice having extra room for them to run around and burn energy off in!

Santa left this store for both of the kids and my dad and Carrie got Ashlynn this cart. The kids LOVE playing store!!

We hosted a New Year's Eve party again this year... I think we've pretty much hosted every year for the family since moved back to Utah. We love having everyone over. The kid's played Trouble and then Hungry Hungry Hippos while they were waiting for everyone to get here.

We had lots of yummy food!

And great company!

All of the kids made it until midnight! We watched fireworks from our bedroom window.

Oh, and Dawson and Hailee made the cutest party hats and signs all on their own.

These are just random pictures of a snow storm a couple of days after Christmas. (We had a pretty big snow storm on Christmas day, too!) I LOVED the storm this day!!! The house felt so warm and cozy and the day was just mellow and cheerful! It snowed almost all day long! We need more days like that!! I love the snowflakes in the pictures!!