Merry Christmas!

Christmas Eve

We were able to go spend time in Blackfoot with the Bell family for the whole weekend and have a wonderful time with many of Chris siblings and their families. It was very nice to spend some quality time with siblings that we usually don't see, and now might not see so much of since we are moving even farther away. All day the boys were out cutting up the backyard tree to prep it for a treehouse while I spent time with the girls and the kids. I got a good long time cuddling with the newest grandchild who is only 3 weeks old! It was so nice to meet him and get to lull him to sleep. We cleaned up and cooked our Christmas Eve lunch and all got to sit down together to celebrate even though we barely fit.

Claire

Our little girl enjoyed visiting our family for Christmas and opening her presents and leaving them all over the living room. She got to play with her cousins even though she was cranky when we were opening presents because she only got PJs for Christmas Eve and there were fun toys that weren't hers. Since she has a hard time sharing, she wasn't very happy until the next morning. There was some prompting to open the presents since she found her candy first and wanted to eat chocolate for breakfast. Once she found her new toys she wanted to play with each one before opening another.

Shay

This was Shaymay's first Christmas! It was really nice to see how she reacts to everything and liked wrapping paper a lot. She had a great time visiting family and trying to steal Claire's toys as always, but she got some of her own that she doesn't seem to notice. It is cute that she wants to play with Claire and since Claire is going to play with every toy in the house any toy one gets is basically both. My favorite gift was their matching cloths, both PJs from us and shirts and pants from Hailey that I have matching pants with too.

Chris

My husband is always so helpful with all of his dad's projects and while we were there they spent a lot of quality time together. The way they show love for each other is quality time so it was great that we were able to go for several days and have that opportunity. We show his mom love by serving her and helping her around the house every time we are there and had that opportunity as well. Now that one holiday is over, we look forward to our anniversary! In between, we are working on applications to scholarships for PA school and hoping we can get through school with as little debt as possible. I feel lucky that my husband is so proactive with his desire for his PA career and his future.

Christmas gratefulness

I am pretty excited about our new shower head and digital BMI scale we got for our bathroom, its nice to have new nice things. I love that Claire got Legos because they are making her so happy and her new bike she rides a lot as well. Shay seems to like anything Claire likes but I'm glad she got some cute matching outfits, mentioned earlier, and a fun book for her. Chris got me a massage table and oil and I got him fancy Purple pillows because we've had a hard time finding him a good pillow this year. The most thing I loved is that we got to spend time with friends, family, and had our own traditions we participated in.

Winter Wreath

Since we've been married I've been working on my decorating which mostly is things I inherited from my mom when she down graded and then things I've made. I started looking for designs that were easy DIY wreaths for each season of the year so that I could have a pretty door. I don't know which I did first but I didn't want them all the same so summer and spring were easy pickings since they were first and I knew they would be fun. Spring is sparkly tulle tied to a foam wreath and summer is patriotic cotton tied onto the metal wreath. Then my fall wreath is burlap and a orange ribbon woven in an out of a metal wreath, but I didn't get a winter wreath until this year! I kept seeing Christmas but not winter wreaths and finally found the idea I wanted so here it is made with mess around a metal wreath!