Christmas Celebrations

My parents are notorious for hosting great parties. This Christmas they got us all a hotel room at the Ogden Marriott and we saw the Christmas villages, went out to eat, and then played games in their suit. Instead of an ugly sweater contest we had a crazy hat contest, and the competition was fierce as you can tell.
Emma has a good amount of girl cousins, unfortunately 8 of them live in the Portland area and only two live here, one of which is 17. However, if I could only pick one Emma's age to live here, it would be Milly anyways. They are like peas in a pod and get along great. In fact it's easier for the two of them to be together then have them one on one. Poor Lydia has no cousins her age, nor will she ever. But all the big kids dote on her and love to have her tag along.


For Emma's Christmas Program Santa came by for a visit. Good thing, because although I had the best of intentions, this was Emma's only visit with Santa this year. I am so thrilled with the pre-school I enrolled Emma in and really lucked out that the teacher ad curriculum are better than I expected.
Ryan's sister Julie came and stayed with us for just shy of two weeks over the Holiday. Sadly, we had a lot of family parties and other commitments, but she was good to stay with the girls and I got her hooked on LOST to keep her busy while we were gone.
This year for Christmas Eve we put luminaries in our cul-de-sac so Santa would know where to land his sleigh. We didn't leave my parents house when we planned so we didn't get the luminaries lit until midnight, and I used tea lights instead of votive candles. So next year we will use votives and get them lit sooner. Great learning experience though and looking forward to perfecting it next year.


I love this photo of the three cousins. The above photo was last year on Christmas Eve. They haven't changed too much. This was our first year NOT spending the night at my parents house for Christmas Eve. It was very "different." Not good or bad, just different. Might take some getting used to, but it was fun to be on our own schedule.


Emma woke us up at 9 and we were happy to have that little bit of sleep. Lydia was NOT amused to be up. We put her back to bed at 9:45 and she slept until 4 in the afternoon when we had her open up the rest of her gifts.




I went to bed at 6 am. I took a photo of the clock before I went off to bed. I like to have everything "just so." Julie gave us Jenga and we enjoyed playing the multiple times during the day. We had a yummy breakfast, napped for four hours, dinner, and then Ju and I saw a movie at 10. Fabulous, relaxing day filled with reflections of family.

We watched "come see the light," a six minute tear jerker video of Christ and all cried as we bore our testimonies to each other. That might be my favorite part of our day. I hope everyone had a Merry Christmas and is enjoying their New Year.