christmas eve and day....

i was really excited to be home for christmas eve this year.  growing up we always had a big party at my grandparents house... we did a nativity, played games, sang songs... santa came...  it was so fun with all my cousins there.... it was also a huge crowd.  but because we always did this i looked forward to this night even more than christmas itself.  our family has become crazy big so we have since split off into our own families... this year we had it at my moms house... we had soups... and appetizers and desserts.... all my siblings except emily came with their families, my dad came and brought his mom my grandma slade, and meeshas parents came.   after dinner we had our traditional white elephant gift exchange game... there  were some fun gifts... chris brought a whitening tray pack from work, jack brought a kindle!!! he had gotten it for free from a work party and didn't need it... and same brought a drone... i was excited to get a box of meesha's carmels!! and we came home with a little box of star wars toys and stickers.  my mom was really smart and had made up little bags of silly presents for each kid to open while we played our adult game.  they then just ran and played all over the house.  i also brought all the stuff from our work party hot chocolate bar and thats what we had for dessert (plus a bunch of other yummy things people brought!!)  it was such a fun night and perfectly wore out each kid to quickly fall asleep that night...

the kids were so cute putting on a little nativity...  daniel loved wearing this little purple wise men dress....

daniel and axel also enjoyed a bowl of whipped cream... haha

we also had our traditional christmas march with hats and sticks... jack wore this vern christensen special hat... he always loved the march... it was fun to have him there in spirit :)

we dressed up all cute for christmas eve so i made sure we got a picture together :) 

i loved how our tree glowed at night with all the lights off... so pretty!!! 

christmas day was fun... daniel loved playing with each toy for a while before opening the next.  he really loved this garbage truck and car hauler he got from my mom.  

i got this really hard maze ball from chris and was so excited when i passed it a few days after christmas :)

the best part of christmas morning for me was rolling out of bead and having my hair look this good...you know its going to be a good day... or it shows how big may hair was last night... or how much hairspray i used...

my favorite gifts from chris were these HUGE peanut butter cups... half pound each.... and this bathroom guestbook sign in.  its hilarious.  we cant wait to actually put it in our bathroom

chris loved this "duke silver band" sweater i got him... its a parks and rec thing.

he also got tired of holding the baby while we were at my moms house and instead of just handing him over decided to strap him on for a while... ha

christmas day was fun.  we spent it at my moms house after we finished opening presents at home... daniel played with cousins... we had good food... and just relaxed.  it was so nice.