Christmas

A more simple Christmas turned out to be exactly what we needed. Any more than what we did would have made Mommy (and therefore the rest of the family) not in the right spirit. It helped that Jon took time off and worked from home, making it possible for me to do some of the things I wanted to do with the kids. Calla still has no nap schedule, and it would have been hard to leave the kids to go wild with cookie decorating sprinkles, to go put a fussy baby down for a nap. Jon was able to step in at all the needed times.


My kids always love it when their cousins come into town. We got to spend time playing at Nana's with lots of cousins, from both far away, and close by. Nana always has the fun decorations that my kids love to play with. Anika had to pose for a picture on Rudolph.

Calla is getting into that really adorable stage. We can always get lots of smiles from her.

If you can't already tell, the boys (or should I say NATHAN) was not too pleased with Mom wanting to take this picture. He was out of there 2 seconds after the flash.

I have to point out that Anika is actually sitting on Santa's lap and smiling! Shy little girl that she is, she was not too pleased with the idea of sitting on his lap. Especially when I pointed out to her the day before that Santa knows if she has been naughty or nice. She was a little worried about getting that lump of coal in her stocking. She had some pretty good reasons to be worried.

Tanner and cousin Ty waiting to see Santa. Both still VERY believing. We had a turning point in our home this year. Nathan knows the truth about Santa. I had to talk with him about it after he started telling siblings that he didn't think that Santa is real. So this year he kept in mind how fun it was to still believe, and did a good job not spoiling it for the others. I think he enjoyed feeling like a grown-up and being in on a big secret.

My mom always treats the kids to a ride on the train after sitting on Santa's lap. This year they went for a long ride around the entire mall. Even Nathan thought it was pretty cool.

One activity we just couldn't cut out was the trip to Temple Square. Two minutes into it, my kids all started complaining that they were starving. We went through an entire giant size bag of kit-kats (it's the only food I had in my bag) before we were finished. It made for some happy kids.

Tanner and Anika were just itching to get out and build a snowman. They tried to make replicas of themselves. Then they made a little baby for Calla. Nathan was the next one on their list, but they started getting wet and cold, and "warm cocoa" started sounding really good.