Christmas Day 2013

 Whoa.  Christmas Day.  (And only a month late!)  Christmas Day with small children is more of a whirlwind of wonderful chaos than anything else.  The kids let us sleep until about 6:30 (pretty good, considering we'd be up before 5 when I was a kid!).  Everyone enjoyed seeing what Santa had brought them (Santa doesn't typically wrap his gift to the kids) and then we all loved opening the gifts that we'd gotten for one another!

By the end of the morning, everyone felt like Kari's face in the picture below :-).  Here are a few of the other pictures of Christmas morning:

Juliana showing off her new dress and boots

Now sporting her new headband, dress up shoes, Rapunzel doll, and soccer ball.

The big girls in their new dresses, working on their new Lego sets

Christian, working on his new Legos

We may have over done it with the ornaments this year...

Here are a couple of my favorite pictures...Santa brought Kari this wall-based Polly Pocket world.  At first, she wasn't quite sure what to think of it.  Luckily, big sister Emily came to the rescue and knew exactly what to do and the girls had so much fun playing with it throughout the day.

Later, after naps, we hosted Christmas Day pizza dinner with the rest of the family and even more present unwrapping ensued.  It was a wonderful Christmas and we were so fortunate to have been able to spend it together, all healthy, and with love.

Christmas Break

This Christmas break was a lot of fun!  Cubby was off all but two days and it made the break very enjoyable!  We took the kiddos out to do some fun stuff.

 A few months ago we bought a Groupon deal for "glow in the dark" putt-putt golf.  From an adult's point of view it was pretty lame, but the kids loved it!  Juliana was especially excited to be out and about with all of the "big kids."










Grandma and Grandpa Lindseth also came into town both before and during Christmas break.  They were driving to visit the Lindseths of Utah and Nebraska just happened to be the perfect stopping point!

They were only able to stay for a day on either end, but we love seeing them regardless of how long!

The kids waving good-bye to Gma and Gpa :)

 Another day we met some friends at this huge indoor playground and let the kids run off some of their energy!  They moved so fast that it was tough to get any still shots of them!

Once a month, the planetarium at the local campus has a star show.  We have been wanting to take the kids for months, but something would always come up the weekend of the show.  Finally, the stars aligned (forgive the pun) and we were able to go!  The big kids loved it and found it really interesting.  The little girls?  Well, Kari did okay...got a little antsy, but made it the hour.  Juliana?  Try asking a toddler to sit in the dark and look up at a bunch of "stars" for an hour and listen to someone talk about them.  Hmmm...not so much.  We ended up walking around and looking at the cool science stuff they had there.

One of the displays the kids liked was one of a collection of geodes for sale.  They ranged in price, starting at just .65!  So, next time, we will take the big kids and they can bring along their wallets!

Overall, it was a great break.  (Have I mentioned that having Cubby home for most of it really helped to make it great??)  Love our little family life!

'Twas the Night Before Christmas 2013

 Yikes.  I am sooo behind!!  Okay, Christmas Eve.  It was spent at Grandma Karen's (and Grandpa Harvey's) house :-).  Dinner was delicious and what was even nicer was that once the kiddos finished their dinner (in record time, of course), they all migrated downstairs to play and so us adults got to actually enjoy our meal and one another's company!

Beautiful table...can't wait to eat!

 After dinner Juliana kept everyone busy...literally.  This girl LOVES play-doh (and beads, apparently). Amazing how one little girl can make others do her bidding without hardly having to say a word!

 After dinner we opened some presents....

Christian got some killer cowboy boots!  (They're super cool--I want some!)

Kari got a new puzzle

Juliana LOVED the new Carl in the Park book she received from Great-Gma

Kari got a new Llama Llama book and Uncle Kyle had a good time reading it to her

Even Mom and Harvey got to open a few gifts a midst the chaos of the kids!

Juliana got a new "Baby Mooshka" doll.
"First you kiss it, Daddy..."

"And then you kiss me!"

Emily and Christian loved looking through Uncle Kyle's new Lego book

Love these special ladies....

Kids got new Christmas jammies--
I was sooo excited that I got matchy-matchy ones!!

After gifts we all tried a couple of cheesy pictures...

The kids were actually really heavy!

Can you tell that they're related??

Christian was pretty proud of his beaded chain.

Once the festivities were over at Mom's, we headed home, read the Christmas story in Luke and sent the children to bed!

Homemade Play-doh

The little girls and I needed to do something different now that the weather has turned so cold.  So I tried my hand at homemade play-doh!  It was great because it makes a huge amount, it smells great, and is super soft so it's easy for little hands to play with!  

Here's the recipe I used:

1 c. flour

1 c. water

1/4 c. salt

2 T. oil

1 T. cream of tartar

1 pkg jell-o

 Mix all ingredients together and cook over low on stove.  Stir frequently.  Use whisk to get rid of clumps.  cook 5-7 min, stirring with spatula.  Once dough starts to gather into a ball and doesn't stick to your fingers, then take it off stove.

Once it cools a minute, knead it on a cutting board.  Store in small ziploc containers.

Happy play-dohing!

Decorating the Tree

 I love decorating the tree...after the lights are up, of course.  This year, Thanksgiving was really late and then Emily's birthday was literally 2 days later, followed by her birthday party a week later so the Christmas festivities got started a little bit later than usual.  It seemed that everyone but us had their tree up before we even bought ours!  But, the time finally came for the tree!  During nap time on a Sunday, the big kids and I put on some Christmas music and starting decking the halls!  It was lovely.

 When Kari and Juliana woke up, they happily joined in on the festivities.  Surprisingly, Juliana, though curious about all of the ornaments, played with them for just a little while and then left them alone for the most part.  Go Juliana!

I loved watching her fascination over all of our pretty ornaments!

Kari did a great job finding just the right spots for her ornaments!

And...then Juliana lost her pants...such cute cheeks!

There was some discrepancy as to who should put up the angel.  Kari insisted that it was her turn, although, in truth, it seemed to be Emily's turn.  So, we let Kari do it first...

 And then took it down for Emily to "officially" put it up.

 ....And then Kari got mad and had to do it again.  {Sigh}

 The funny thing about little kids decorating a tree is that certain branches seem to  receive more than their fair share of ornaments...

Ah, the Holidays!