Christmas

This Christmas season was full of lots of fun. We baked cookies and other treats, I made homemade stockings for the teachers at Russell's school and filled them with the goodies. I made homemade stockings for the three of us because our stockings were pretty singed from our old fireplace and they just didn't look good anymore. Our great Elder's Quorum President came and hung our lights for us since Russell couldn't do it and had been super bummed that he wouldn't be able to do it this year. We received tons of goodies from friends and family but surprisingly neither of us gained any weight! Mid December we took Kennadee to see Santa at the mall. We didn't get the professional pictures there because they are ridiculously expensive but thankfully at this mall they let you see Santa without paying for it. So Russell sat back and took a picture from afar. 

                                      

The weekend before Christmas was our Ward Christmas party. It was pretty fun we ate good food and visited with friends. Then Kennadee got to see Santa and sit on his lap and tell him what she wanted for Christmas. It was pretty funny.

Christmas Eve we went to the Mildensteins house. It was really nice to just be with family. Diana was going to have more people there but Gabe had been ill the day before and Nathanael had an ear infection so she just wanted to keep it low key. It was nice to have our traditional Clam chowder (she even made me a portion without clams) , corn bread, veggie tray, cheeseball/crackers, and lots of treats.

It was actually really cold that night and had snowed a little (nothing stuck) during the day so we enjoyed a nice log on the fire. The children loved sitting and looking at the fire. It was really windy outside so the flames were dancing in the wind coming down the chimney it was really cool.

Kennadee and Nate enjoyed the fire as well. Such a cute picture!!

We had our traditional Christmas Eve program reading from the Bible and reading my Great Grandma's Christmas story and some other stories. We also sang a few Christmas songs. Then we opened our traditional Christmas Eve pajamas. For some reason I didn't get any pictures of Kennadee opening hers. But this is what they looked like:

Christmas morning Kennadee came down the stairs to see what Santa brought

Some of her favorites were Pet Shops, Ice Age 3, play food, a rubix cube, and a huge Hershey's kiss. She also got a Dora electric toothbrush that immediately after we were done with breakfast she went and brushed her teeth with.

Me with my stocking

Russell with his stocking

After we opened presents the rest of the day was spent eating and watching movies and I spent 2 and a half hours putting together Kennadee's toy kitchen!! We also spent some time at Russell's mom's house for dinner and games. Overall it was a pretty good Christmas season. We hope you all had a very Merry Christmas!!