Merry Little Everything

All these pictures are from the span of about four days from last week. Christmas Eve Eve. Christmas Eve. Christmas Day. The Day After Christmas. Christmas, Christmas, Christmas. Everything revolves around Christmas! As it should!

On Christmas Eve Eve we made gingerbread men. It was a mess. It was a blast. It was worth it. And those cookies were so soft and delicious. I used the same recipe that I used growing up and I love it! Especially with the burnt raisins on top!! I took a little bit of footage while we made them so a little video will eventually be in the works. I have so many little projects I need to finish. Maybe I'll be motivated with the new year?

On Christmas Eve we went sledding as a family! Spokane has a perfect hill in the valley that everyone likes to sled down. It was such a perfectly snowy day! I'm pretty sure freezing temperatures, snow and sledding are Cole's love language. He had so much fun. Logan on the other hand, well let's just say he hates being cold. Poor baby. Even though we bought him some real snow pants, he was not having it. He spent the majority of the time sitting on either my lap or Steve's lap while we took turns sledding with Cole. It was still a blast. When we were all thoroughly frozen, we hurried home for hot chocolate!! Logan took a nap and then we headed over to Steve parents' for a lovely Christmas Eve dinner prepared by Yvonne. There was some accordion playing and singing and even a pinata! I let the boys open their new jammies as their first present and they loved them. (Comfortable pajamas are Cole's love language too haha)

On Christmas Day Santa came!!!! How could he not?! The boys were mostly good this year ;) And they got so many presents. SO MANY PRESENTS! Santa brought them a sled; I knew he would. He actually dropped it off a little before Christmas which was perfect because that way we were able to use it Christmas Eve. If you know what I'm saying ;) Steve made the boys that cool tent/teepee and the boys call it their "home." Haha. I helped a little and Yvonne helped a lot with the sewing but mostly Steve thought it up and then made it and I was so proud of him :) After all the presents, we enjoyed a yummy breakfast, courtesy of Steve and the awesome double waffle maker my parents gifted us for Christmas. We can bust out enough waffles for our whole family in a matter of minutes! Talk about luxury! Christmas Day was such a perfect day. It was clear skies and the snow looked so pretty in the sunlight. We had a slow morning and then headed back to Steve's parents where the boys opened even more presents!

The day after Christmas we went ice skating! Cole had to learn all over again how to skate but I was so proud of him because he never gave up! He fell so many times but kept trying and trying until he finally got it down! Steve helped him a lot. I helped him a little too ;) Later that evening we went to the Coeur d'Alene resort and got gooey's! And then saw the lights. Craig and Brandon's girlfriends were here for Christmas and so were Johnny and Alyse so it was so much fun having so much young love around us.

This Christmas season was such a happy time for us. I feel like I really got into the Christmas spirit. I know Christmas isn't all about presents and Santa and I feel like I did a pretty good job of focusing on Christ this Christmas. I did most of the items on this list to help us keep Christ the center of Christmas. I especially loved all the Christmas videos and the Christmas devotional. My all time favorite Christmas song is "In the Bleak Midwinter" which seems fitting for this winter because it has been so cold and there has been so much snow! But these are my favorite lines from the song, they make me cry every time I hear them:

What can I give Him
Poor as I am
If I were a shepherd
I would bring a lamb
If I were a wiseman
I would do my part
Yet what can I give Him
Give my Heart

Because really that is the only thing that we can give Him: Our heart ♥

Christmas Waffles

Waffles. Our whole family loves them. It's Steve's thing to make us waffles every Saturday morning, and now that my mom and dad got us a double waffle maker for Christmas, we are hooked up!! Thanks mom and dad! We were excited to eat these Christmas morning :)

ps, you have to watch the very last clip! So funny!!

Merry Christmas from us ♥

We were somehow on top of it this year and had our Christmas cards fully ready by mid November! I feel crazy even typing that out haha! (I copied our Christmas card layout from here.)

And here are our family pictures! Luckily Steve's dad is quite decent with the camera, so I set up my camera for him and told him where to take our picture. A huge thanks to him!!! Considering how many times we tried to get a good picture, I should really have more to show than these ones haha. But we got one with all of us smiling so we're calling it a success! Merry Christmas from us to you! The most wonderful time of the year! ♥

Only three more days til Christmas!!!!!

It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas!

It looks like we just might have a white Christmas and I'll be so happy if we really do!! We woke up to a beautiful blanket of snow yesterday morning and it snowed again today so I think our chances are high! (Not to mention the weather forecast also says it's supposed to snow everyday from now until Christmas day. Yay!) I have a feeling that Santa might be bringing the boys a sled this year so Christmas needs to hurry up and happen :)

We've got our Christmas decorations up, Cole has sent his letter to Santa, we joined our community as the youth from our church re-enacted the nativity, I have Raffi's Christmas album playing on repeat most days and I've almost gotten all my Christmas cards out! The Christmas spirit is in full swing here and oh how I love it. Steve and I also have a little surprise that we're making for the boys and we can't wait to give it to them Christmas morning.

Merry almost Christmas ♥

A FIVE year old and a TWO year old!

I had the hardest time deciding how to celebrate both of their birthdays this year. I finally settled on inviting a couple friends over for a play date and that's really all it was, just with some balloons and birthday cake thrown in there. I ordered their number shirts from oldnavy.com and they loooove them. I loved their reaction to when they first opened them.

My boys are growing up!! Gosh I love them. ♥

Snow in P a r a d i s e, MT

It snowed today here in Liberty Lake so I thought I'd post this video now. My boys love snow!! And I love how pretty it is! It's terrifying to drive in but oh so pretty to look at. Kudos to Steve for being a great driver when we had to drive for hours in it on our way home from Utah!

Liberty Lake in early December

I think my real motivation in going on this outing was, of course, to get the boys out of the house, but really I wanted to get some new portraits of their cute faces. They weren't feeling that as much as I was though ;) It's ok!

The days leading up to this day had been cold and dreary, so when we woke up to blue skies and sunshine (and in December on top of that!) we decided we better make good use of it and go to the county park and have lunch outside. It was windy and a little chilly, but the boys were so happy. They ran around, checked out the beached docks and jumped all over the picnic tables. It'll be a while until we get to do something like this so we enjoyed it one last time before real winter hits.