the lead up to Christmas

Hard to know what to even blog about. Christmas Prep! Christmas Eve! Christmas Day! All the cousins! The massive quantity of food! Recap of 2013! Yikes.

Ehh let's start with Christmas Prep and Christmas Eve. We had to make some cookies for Santa... and it just happened to be in our advent calendar a few days before Christmas.

Linc was in charge of quality control.

get it, kid!

Morgan and Sabrina and their families arrived last weekend. I have no concept of time, except it was the weekend before Christmas. A week ago? Is today a weekend? No?

This is Quinn and she is all fluff and smiles and she smells so good.

JaNae organized caramel apples one night. They were seriously delicious. Especially with 9 pounds of m n ms on them.

 Sunday was church, and I've already told you about that. But this picture. Oh man. These are my children.

Don't tell but I for sure took this during church.

On Christmas Eve, we made a bunch of cinnamon rolls for our family to eat on Christmas morning, it's a tradition (for only three years now but I'm determined to keep that one going.) We went over to my parents' for a big crab dinner with our family. 

super excited for some presents.

Me and Margo. We became best buds this trip. Also, I'm pregnant.

I look forward to this meal for a year.

Linc and baby Quinn

The kids opened their new pajamas and slippers before our live nativity. 

how cute are these wiseman/shepherds

We read some stories with the kids, sang some songs around the piano and then headed home. We sprinkled reindeer food on the lawn...we put out our cookies and milk complete with a santa mug (thanks leigh). We tucked the kids in bed and got to work. We had a few things to put together and some last minute wrapping to do, but I think by about 11 we were in bed. 

I swear it is so much more fun to be the parent at Christmas than the kid. I love the anticipation of preparing and planning and waiting to see their little faces. It is so exciting to make the magic happen. Most of all, I'm thankful that because of my Savior Jesus Christ, this little family of mine is eternal. And that is what we celebrate at Christmas.

insta-update vol. 24?

Morgan told me she hates when I do instagram updates so this one is for her. It's the only convenient way for me to keep copies of my instagrams on my blog so too bad for you, Morgan, don't even read it.

putting up the tree

 

in the door, on the floor. / riding the turtle

 

asleep with her shades/ song time in nursery

 

soft fluffy morning baby/ nekkid in december

 

morning with flash/ stink face at barnes and nobles

 

reading christmas stories/ seeing christmas shows! sheesh.

 

snow day/ blowing off chores to see frozen again

church outfits. killing me.

 

letter to santa: Dear Santa, I have been a good girl. Pink Pony, Frozen stuff, Barbie house. And some dress ups for Lincoln. I will leave you cookies and carrots for your reindeer. They love carrots. Love, Isabelle

 

fetch with our favorite dog/ tiny santa suit

 

busy elves/ rolling the dough

 

fresh lemonade from gwammas tree/ the cousins converge

Christmas program at church

Morgan- don't read this post because its just a silly instagram update. DON'T READ IT. Waste of time.

Anyway, For everyone else...we had a really nice Christmas program at church- Isabelle sang with the primary and I played some stuff on the harp. I had to be there early to set up/tune/practice so Jazz was in charge of getting the kids ready (minus Izzie's hair. That's level five.) and when they arrived at church ten minutes early in their red outfits I almost EXPLODED they looked so cute and I was so impressed that Jazz aced the morning schedule. Good job, spouse. I looked down our row and my family was there and I was just so happy and so thankful for my babies in their festive clothes and bright faces.

Our family has started arriving for the holiday week. So far there are lots of cousins to play with and not everyone is here yet! There will be 21 of us together on Christmas and the days following. Lincoln sort of hates sharing "his" toys at Grandmas house and so far is snatching and pushing and stealing things right and left. I know he is hitting the terrible twos so SORRY MARGO for him being so bossy/aggressive. We are working on it.

Gifts are wrapped, house is mostly clean and tidied, I have some more cinnamon rolls to bake tomorrow but we are so ready and excited for this week with our family. It is rare for us ALL to be together and we have been looking forward to this for a long time. We even have a baby sitter lined up for this weekend so we can play games and hang out later than our childrens' bedtimes. Isabelle is so excited for Santa to come- we have been doing an activity advent all month long and so there is only one little door left to open before Christmas day and she can't wait. She also magically knows a million Christmas songs and just sings them around the house. We have our cookies for Santa baked and she made reindeer food at preschool to sprinkle on the lawn for them to snack on. Christmas with kids is SO MUCH MORE FUN than actually being the kid! Who knew? Here's to a Merry Christmas the whole week long. We will probably even push it to ten days...

Morgan I know you read it. It's okay.

Family Pictures 2013

Well, now that the Christmas cards are addressed and sent, I thought I'd share some of our family pictures we took last month. Maybe it was October, I seriously can't remember. Yeah, it was October.

The thing about family pictures is that you can do all the prep work, be 100% ready, have outfits picked out and ironed, kids bathed and combed, trunk packed full of props and snacks. And STILL have a challenging time. And by challenging time, I mean Lincoln Michael. Oh, that KID.

It rained all day. And it was like are we doing this? Is it cancelled? But it cleared up and we decided to go for it. So we get out there, and I'm driving, and I make the mistake of not getting great directions and of course we are lost and late and I HATE being late especially since I have taken the last oh, like 5 hours to get ready and be on time. We get all set up and Lincoln screams. Won't let us hold him. Won't stand still. Just wants to run free like the true little hippie explorer he is. We got some great shots of each kid, and even some of me and Jazz, but NO family pictures. Lincoln was completely uncooperative, even with my best bribes. I mean, he was 1 1/2, he really doesn't care THAT much about a fruit snack.  And bless Katie's heart- she was so patient and kind and non-judgey but in my mind I was like PULL IT TOGETHER.

And the sun set. And the kids were hungry. So we called it a day and rescheduled for three weeks later. Which meant three weeks more pregnant- another trip to get the bangs trimmed, wash and re-iron all the clothes etc. SO MUCH FUN.

This time we brought my mom. And an even larger assortment of distractions including a stuffed puppet pig. Aaaaand it was still torture. Lincoln did not want any part of the pictures, he wanted to hold his paci. And have an additional paci in his mouth. And he wanted to run away. We were making ridiculous noises, jumping around, trying to trick him into holding still. Nothing worked.

But you would never know it from the great pictures Katie got! Oh THANK YOU KATIE FOR BEING SO GOOD. Because hot damn, Lincoln was a tricky little subject. Of course Isabelle sat and posed like a perfect little model. Bless you, child.

I think this is about when we called it quits. I love the big fat real tears on his cheeks.

Also, I'm aware I post a lot of pictures of Lincoln crying or screaming. Morgan made sure I knew that. He is really opinionated and also his cry face is pretty funny and 90% of the time he is not crying.  So. 

Here is about a million.

i love this one.

running away. 

We look so much alike.

one of the many gems we have.