Christmas Eve/Christmas Visitors!

For those of you who read this blog and are actually interested; please note that this is one of three posts about Christmas. So, scroll down to find the other posts, or you may have to go down the the bottom of this post where it says “Older Posts” and click on that.

Now on to the info. This Christmas was our first year doing it all by ourselves at our own home. Since this was the case, we had the opportunity of having a lot of visitors Christmas Eve and Christmas! I will only tell of the two most important though: Rob’s mother (Nana Strong) and her family, and Grandpa Clayton and his friend Jean.

On the morning of Christmas Eve Rob’s family came to our house bearing gifts. The boys loved them and the company!

While we were visiting, Mason decided to take some pictures of his own. Here is his work (for sale for the right price):

Yes, he is that good. And it was WONDERFUL to get to spend some time with the family :)

Our other important Christmas time visitors were Grandpa Clayton and his friend Jean. They came bearing the most delicious chocolates and drinks and gifts also. Jean was so kind as to read Mason a story. Isn’t she a natural?

Sadly, I don’t have a picture of Grandpa Clayton, but it sure was fun to see him. and we’re grateful he would make the trip up.

This weekend we’ll get to see my family. I’m so excited to see my sister Savannah who’s been down in AZ teaching school!!! And to see my parents of course ;) Thank you to everyone who has made this Christmas time possible :) hee- hee!

Side note: Mason will randomly start singing “Jingle Bells”. I am trying very, very hard to catch him on video doing it. Soon as I do, I’ll be putting it here.

It’s CHRISTMAS!

So that’s how our Christmas morning started (well, the gift part of Christmas morning). Mom and dad couldn’t figure out how to get the toy to work. Pretty pathetic. haha! Luckily things just went up from there. But let me back up a little bit. We actually started Christmas morning by going to sacrament meeting. The choir put on a beautiful program (if I do say so myself). Since I sing in the choir, Rob got to sit with the boys by himself….so…for him maybe Christmas morning wasn’t all that great. I LOVED it though. :)

Ok. Now the parents being dumb. I stayed with the kids out in the van watching “Signing Time” while dad went in to fix Santa’s gifts up and get the camera. We had to cover them with a blanket so the kids wouldn’t see before we went to church and get distracted. When he was ready we marched inside and then cue the above video. Oh well. The parents and grandparents were very generous this year…I won’t bore you with all the details of what they received. I’ll just put in a bunch of pictrues/videos.

I’m sorry you had to hear me sing, but Mason had just gotten done kissing Rachel (the star of this show) and showed more excitement and expression opening this gift than almost any other…yep…Mason does takes present opening very, very seriously.

The big moment came when we took the boys downstairs. This is what was waiting for them (courtesy of Grandma and Grandpa Day- Thank you!):

And thank you to Rob who spent a long time Christmas Eve night putting it together! haha! For the record, Mason spent 5, yes FIVE hours playing with it Christmas Day. This would also account for why even though we started opening presents at 10:30 am we didn’t get done until 3:30pm.

Afterwards we went for a walk.

We ended the day with a Christmas drive to find as many Christmas lights as we could. And then home to play with toys. It was a FUN, FUN DAY! (Side notes: I had a blast playing with my kids’ toys. And if you are wondering why there is a picture of my bedroom, it is to show off the quilt and pillow cases my mom made! Also, the antler plaque was made by my dad to showcase my first and only buck). It was a day to remember…. :)

The Day After…

Sorry, I don’t know that Christmas posts are going to turn out in chronological order because there is just SOOO much to say. Rob had the day off after Christmas, so we decided to go on a lot of random and fun adventures as a family.

1st: The Train. The Roy frontrunner station is literally just a few blocks east of our house, so we decided to take the kids for a little train ride. We rode from Roy to Woods Cross and back. The kids thought it was awesome! They loved looking out the window at the world rushing by. The rest of the day Mason begged to go ride a train again. (Sorry, I did not get any pictures of this part).

2nd: The Pond. Next we went to a little park/trail system just south of our house a few miles. There were soooo many ducks and geese! Neither boys could take their eyes off of them. We walked around the lake and let Morgan do some walking too. Rob and Mason also chased some ducks.

 

3rd: Cabelas. As we were driving away from the pond, Rob all the sudden pipes up with, “Hey, lets hop on the freeway and drive down to Cabelas and let the boys see the fish and all the animals”. So, we did. It was fun to be able to just spontaneously hop on the road and leave like that. Upon entrance in to the store, we first went to the big mountain with the little stream going around it. The boys were giddy about the giant trout swimming around just beneath them.

We also took them to the aquarium. Morgan was laughing and babbling at the fish the whole time! And Mason was talking up a storm about all the big fish.

 

Next we went into the trophy room and saw all the different animals. For some reason Morgan couldn’t take his eyes off a little stuffed skunk. He thought it was pretty cool. He also thought the quail were of note and fun to talk to.

We walked around the loop in there several times.

Then we ventured around to other parts of the store, and ended up in front of the African animals. Again the boys were delighted, and ended up spending a good 15 minutes or more sitting in these big sleds they had in front of the exhibit. They were perfectly content to stay in there and play and look at the animals.

4th: Thanksgiving Pointe. After spending almost 1.5 hours in Cabelas we decided to venture on over to Thanksgiving Pointe. We had every intention of going through the big dinosaur museum and driving around to see all the Christmas lights. But upon assessing the costs and our hunger, we decided to stick with doing a few children’s games out in the front lobby. Mason won some smarties tossing some rings on to a dinosaur, and also made a very nice rattle out of a paper plate and some beans. This was enough. We then walked across the street to the deli and had some delicious dinner and an ice cream cone.

 

The last thing to do was grab ourselves our favorite drinks and head back home again. It was a fun, jam-packed day, and we have decided to do this more often. Just take days off together and do whatever random thing comes to mind. It was the most fun we’ve had together as a family since who knows when :) (Well, since Christmas- haha!)