Christmas Morn 2013

After five years of family blogging, I'm starting to notice a trend in my post titles.  It seems like Christmas mornings are happening  more frequently these days, leaving me little extra time to come up with creative post titles.  How many times can you describe Christmas morning?  Regardless, it's always magical when experienced through the eyes of children.  Grammy and Papa joined us once again for a beautiful Christmas morning in the mountains!  

I'm a terrible mom.  I didn't even bake Santa some cookies!  We re-gifted him a cake pop from church.  It was probably better than my cookies would've been.  And look!  He didn't leave a crumb.

Lots of fun gifts this year, including a doctor set, a sandwich making kit, Rockin' Elmo, a second set of jumbo cardboard blocks, and a pretend shotgun for Liam (I know, I know…but it was top of his list.)

The boys love their giant teddy bears from Grammy and Papa, as well as Liam's pinball machine!

I'm going to pat myself on the back for this one.  I finally found a suitable replacement for Wes's early 90's gangster hooded black puffer coat.  He is only aloud to wear that if a) he's snowboarding (not with me), b) he's trying to fit in in Detroit, or c) it's suddenly the early 90s again.  

Playing on Christmas morning is the best!  

And then my little musicians rocked out to Christmas music with their new jingle bells.  

Precious moments!  I will not wish these early years away.  I will not wish these early years away.  I will not wish these early years away...  

Christmas Eve 2013

Another glorious Christmas has come and gone.  We did plenty of prep getting into the Christmas spirit throughout the month with all of the festive activities, but nothing beats the big day (or eve).  We kicked things off with a pre-party at my place, which I'm sure no one remembers because most slept during it.  Remind me to put in less effort next year!  The highlight was the cheese platter with Triple Cream and Fig Jam.  Heaven.  Here's proof that it actually happened: 

I was excited to have a corn-hole tournament, but my parents left early to get dinner ready (the only acceptable excuse), Bret, Lindsay and Aiden spent some quality time with the iPhone and Wes and the boys played Halo.  Shame!  

Things picked up at Grammy and Papa's house.  It's always so festive at Christmas time; it even smells like Christmas.

The classic boys and the tree pictures, complete with red striped matching overalls...

You know those meals that you just never forget?  This was one of them.  I haven't had better at the fancy Park City restaurants.  Great work, Grammy and Papa!  Way to make things special.

After dinner, we read the Christmas story in Luke while Liam pointed out all of the protagonists in Grammy's nativity as we read.  

We got home just in time to write a letter to Santa and leave him milk, a cake-pop (I slacked on the baking this year) and carrots for the reindeer. 

And Santa visited in the wee hours...