Our Christmas in 2013!

 Merry Merry Christmas in 2013! 

Oh how we love Christmas time! We started decorating shortly after our Thanksgiving dinner weekend! We start with hanging stockings and wall decor-- the tree gets put up-- and without fail it takes us a few nights to find time to string our popcorn- so therefore we cannot begin decorating the tree! After a couple days, once the popcorn is ready (oh, and we have to string the popcorn on a friday night bc that is movie night and you cannot string popcorn without watching a Christmas movie- Duh!) we finish decorating our tree!

And, I'm happy to report that they are getting better at decorating it.  Last year, most of our ornament were on the bottom limbs, but this year they were spread out more. Logan enjoyed being able to help- he would mostly pick up an ornament, try to hang it and if he did, he would get very happy with himself.  If he had trouble hanging it, he would get frustrated and tell you where to put it-and it had to be just right or he would let you know right then that you were doing it wrong.

We visited Santa at the Bass Pro Shop this year and we were very happy with our experience and picture!

This year my mom and Steve drove up and arrived on Christmas Eve. It is fun being able to celebrate holidays with family so we were super excited to have them stay with us! 

Christmas morning picture before the kids woke up!

And then once they were awake, the fun of wrapping paper and seeing bright smiles soon commensed!

Christmas morning to me is about family. I love being with my family, and enjoying a season of giving and remembering our Savior Jesus Christ's birth.  More than anything, we hope that our kids always know why we celebrate Christmas and feel love when they remember back to each year.

I want to take a moment and brag on my thoughtful husband who dazzled me with such awesome gifts!

First to give a small backstory-- the pink dress I am wearing in the picture above is very special to me. I wore it in my 8th grade beauty pageant.  Yes, you did just read that right- 8th grade- clearly, you can tell I did a lot of growing between then and now. Back then, this dress was white and much fuller in appearance. Years later in 2008, it became my princess peach dress for our family halloween costumes.  It was perfect, but white-- so dyed it pink! (Yes, there is a tiny part of me that wishes it was still white)  The following year, we decided to sell our Mario costumes before halloween to pay for that year's costumes.  This included my dress-- it took a long time and a good bit of presuading for Michael to get me on board. 

A conversation comes to mind: Me- "But I can save it for our daughter to play dress up in! She will love it!" Michael- "You really think she will want to dress up in it? It will be to big for her, and we don't have a daughter."  Something to that extent anyway-- and the truth is, if we wanted to pay for awesome costumes that year we had to find extra money somehow.

We sold it on Ebay for a good amount- I remember carefully and sadly packing it to ship.  I wrote a small note asking the new owner to please take of this dress that I had come to love.  I knew I would never see it again. 

But my thoughtful, caring, wonderful husband thought one day, "I wonder if I could find it..." 

He was able to track down an old email and would you believe the person we sold it to still used that email, still had the dress, and was willing to sell it back to him! 

The dress arrived way before Christmas and bless him he kept his secret even though it was so obviously hard for him. He kept it hidden and on Christmas eve I opened the sweetest poem that I will keep forever and opened a box to find my long lost dress! I was so happy to see that dress, but what I love the most is Michael and I love that this dress now represents something much more to me. 

Of course I had to try it on! And, Kailey was the funniest because her excitement bubbled over and she had to get her princess dress on too! Such fun!  

Now, he could and probably should have stopped there.. but he also got me KitchenAid! 

...I'll admit it, I'm spoiled by his love. 

Meanwhile, I gave Michael a large filing cabinet. haha Definitely not as thoughtful.. but very functional.  He has thanked me several times since, so hopefully even though it wasn't quite as epic he still likes it. He also was gifted chocolates and an anniversary edition of the old TMNT van.

Another funny story that I will say about all this is the following day, after all the Christmas wrapping paper had settled to the floor, the boxes were opened, after dinner was cooked, Michael took all the trash outside. Once everyone was tucked in bed, it occurred to me that I had no idea where my poem that Michael had wrote.  I had left it in the kitchen, but now it was no where to be found. I became frantic. I did not want to loose those words. So at 12am, I was outside in the cold, digging through trash. I didn't find it, and tears started forming.  I tried to calm myself and I prayed to find it. A little while later, I found it stuck safely in my baking cabinet. (whew!)

The day after Christmas Michael sadly had to work, but we took the kids to Build-a-Bear to spend their gift cards that Nana (Michael's mom) gave them for Christmas and later went to eat BBQ. 

We had such fun spending the Christmas holidays with family! 

Thanks for visiting Gah and Pawpaw Steve!