New Year's Eve

We stayed home for Christmas Eve and celebrated as a family. I tried to trick all the kids and turn the clocks forward but the bigs knew to look at the phones and weren't fooled. We did get to use our new cotton candy maker and it made the night so much more exciting. 

Christmas Week

We took my Nannie and Pappie to one of our favorite spots while they were here. We played on the cold beach for awhile waiting for it to get dark. 

 Once it was dark we walked around Shore Acres to look at the Christmas lights. The kids favorite tree this year was the DQ tree decorated with their red spoons.

And before we took them to the airport we hiked Sweet Creek falls and actually made it to the end of the trail for once.

Later in the week we did more exploring, taking advantage of the sun.

Christmas Day

Ollie's stash

Clover's stash

Corduroy's stash

Adylin's stash

Milo's stash

Ollie carried around a toy magazine for months with a picture of this hot wheels garage and asked for it daily

Clover FINALLY got her big pink fluffy unicorn. 

All Milo wanted was some magic tracks for Christmas. 

 Christmas was on Sunday this year so after opening Santa's presents and eating breakfast we got ready for church. Luckily they only had church for an hour instead of 3 so we came right back home and got back to playing with our new toys!

Decorating for Christmas

My parents came for Christmas! It was so nice to have them here to celebrate with! We each got a fun beanie in our advent calendar the night they arrived. 

Our Christmas card this year.

I bought this awesome hutch a couple weeks before Christmas and it as the perfect decor since it was red and my walls were green.

The trees the kids painted looked great on top of it.

And on top of another corner hutch I bought in the summer.

Clover was busy making fun pictures to hang in our art gallery.

And here is Corduroy in the sled that I make her shove herself into every year to re-create her baby pictures. 

Christmas Parties

There are always a million parties in December. 

Adam's work party

Ward Christmas Party. The bishop went to primary and asked all the kids what they wanted to do and then he ended up creating a party that had everything in it that was requested. It was a huge mix of everything and the kids loved it.

The kids parties all worked out where I was able to go to all of them. Yay!

Santa sitting on Santa's lap.

 Milo's party was an all day event with presents, crafts, and a movie. Here are his buds Trendel and Paxton.

Clover's teacher has done the same party for years and years. She puts together a breakfast for the kids. They made reindeer and pancakes.

 So cute.

Ady's party was pretty eventful too. Lots of different stations with fun things to do. I was wiped out by this party and so I just sat at one table to whole time and only got this picture. But they had all sorts of fun pinterest crafts and pinterest treats.

Anniversary

Adam and I got to celebrate our anniversary several times this year!

First a friend came over the day before our anniversary and watched the boys during the day so we could drive up the coast and have lunch. Super good food with an amazing view and it was a beautiful day for a drive up the coast.

I taught art on our anniversary and was all dressed up so I could go straight to dinner. We were all ready and then decided we weren't in the mood for a fancy dinner so we changed into comfy clothes and headed to our favorite hole in the wall Mexican place.

I love this man of mine!

Then a couple weeks later my parents came into town and we were able to take ff to Portland for an overnighter. It was soooo nice! Our first stop was the temple so that we didn't talk ourselves out of it later on.

Adam found this really good place to eat. Another hole in the wall. So much a hole that we walked right by it 4 times before we even noticed it was the restaurant we were looking for. Umbrellas on the ceiling! Squeeee!

 Adam got his pho and then it was my pick the rest of the trip.

 We walked around downtown Portland the rest of the night.

 I loved seeing all the windows decorated for the holidays. Man, I miss cities.

 Most of the stores were closed while we were walking around. Probably good or else Clover might have gotten a million unicorn goodies for Christmas.

 And we made it to Powel Books. It was so fun to browse around the whole store. But the rare book room was closed. Sad.

 In the morning we walked along the river and went to a farmers market and then over to Voodoo Donuts. After we checked out of the hotel we headed back home making plenty of stops at the outlets and Eugene. Always have to do some shopping while we are in the big cities.

 While we were away my parents had fun with the kiddos. They even ran into the Grinch and Santa while getting pizza.