Merry Christmas!

It was a very Merry Christmas at our house this year!

Our kids are getting older, but they still put up with our requests, it's tradition!

 Christmas Eve PJ's

Our Christmas Eve gift this year was a fun new game.  It was pretty silly.

Santa is extra busy at our house, not only does he set out gifts and nibble the special cookie left out just for him, he builds a barricade each year keeping the kids in their room.  No peeking at this house, guaranteed.

Christmas morning is always so much fun! Dad surprised us all with new backpacking gear!  We are looking forward to using it all this Summer!

Our sweet neighbor Vickie gave the kids thoughtful gifts.  I'm amazed at how well she did, they all were thrilled with the perfect gift she gave to each of them.

Austin was so excited to get a Wii U.  He hugged it!

Linsey was thrilled to get a new phone!

I'm not sure what Hunter is doing, but he was really happy about these new shoes!

For weeks, Austin was wrapping gifts for our family.  No one knew exactly what he was wrapping. At one point, I took him to the dollar store to pick out a few gifts which he quickly wrapped that same day, and then continued to wrap more of his mystery gifts right up until Christmas morning. It was so fun to open each of these thoughtful gifts.  Most of them were notes, a few coins, decorated cards, all super special and right from the heart.  We sure love sweet Austin!

Lots of great surprises Christmas morning.  Loved watching my kids and their excitement!

Another fun surprise!

We moved the ping pong table inside and played for hours and hours day after day for weeks!

We planned a fun trip to Disneyland in February, but decided to surprise our kids on Christmas morning with the news!  Everyone was thrilled, but Austin was especially excited!

 A few more pictures of random fun!

decorating gingerbread houses at Haggen.

 Garden d'Lights

We enjoyed the "Star Wars" themed gingerbread display in Seattle.

 I love my kids creativity and huge imaginations!  It's the best!

And that's a wrap, Christmas 2015!

Thanksgiving

Thanksgiving is always a great opportunity to spend quality time with family.  I loved watching my sweet mother work side by side with her granddaughters, making pies!  Aren't they lovely?

These girls worked hard, they also made other yummy sides to our amazing meal.

 documenting...

These two can take no credit.

Everything looked just perfect!

Emma and Gavin made place cards with a mystery letter on that back.  We had to stand in order to form a mystery word, "Happy Thanksgiving!"

After Thanksgiving, we wasted no time and went on to celebrate Christmas together, since we weren't planning a big family get together in December.

We also celebrated Anthony's birthday, which is the week before Christmas.  

So much love!

Grandma gave everyone a can of star wars soup to eat on December 18th, Anthony's birthday and also the day the new Star Wars movie was coming out!

The kids were especially thrilled to have a little snow.  It wasn't much, but it was enough to sled.

We really enjoyed getting to know this cute little cousin.  Doug made a huge effort to fly to California and bring back Maximus and Aleck to spend the holidays with us.

The boys were in heaven playing video games and watching movies.

We went bowling!

And we watched the kids do a ropes course.

(Anthony and Doug still count as kids I guess)

 Cafe Rio!

 Fun at the movies!

This scene cracks me up.  We had to wait for an unusually long time to get our dinner and everyone was on electronics killing the time.

Hunter said, "I don't know what to do.  My phone is dead!"
Aunt Tally replied, "You could try talking to your cousin."
Hunter's response:  "Good idea!  (Turns toward his cousin Zach) Can I borrow your phone?"