To start off the holiday season Ryan and I went to a Christmas Tree display the day after Thanksgiving while my mom spent some Grandma time with the kids. They had all sorts of trees decorated all different ways. Our favorite one was one that was decorated with elves (sorry no pictures).
On Saturday December 7th was Ryan's work Christmas party and our ward Christmas party. Our babysitter wanted to go to the ward party so we dropped the kids off at the church and left our van for them to take our kids home, then we headed to the work party at a winery. Ryan is the only one at the office who does not drink. After dinner we played a bunch of "minute-to-win-it" games.
Ryan Playing
As a tradition we started to give the kids Christmas themed jammies...
On December 19th we headed to "Santa's House" in downtown Sioux City. Last year we took the boys to Santa's house in Cleveland so we had to come up with a good story to tell them. We ended up telling them that the Santa was remodeling and we had to go to a different part of the North Pole while they worked on the other part of the house. They seemed to be OK with that explanation.
Emily, Christopher, Santa, Benjamin, Nathanial
Emily was hesitant to go any closer to Santa.
After we finished at Santa's house we drove around looking at Christmas lights when Ryan noticed this...
"Right in the middle of the front room window!"
On Christmas Eve we went to the Wheelock's home for dinner. After dinner we came home and we opened our Christmas PJ's from Grandma Julie...
After we opened our PJ's we set up "camp" downstairs and let the kids watch Christmas movies until midnight and then they fell asleep.
Shortly after the kids fell asleep Santa made his magical appearance...
The kids were spoiled by everyone this year. The boys finished opening presents around 4 in the afternoon and Emily finished opening hers after a nap around 6 pm. As much as we miss our families at Christmastime we have enjoyed our "slow" Christmas mornings. The kids open a present and play with it and then when they are ready they open another one...
Nathanial holding Benjamin, Christmas morning
Benjamin
Christopher and his Ninja Turtle remote control car from Santa
Emily and her new doll and cradle from Santa
Ryan flying Nathanial's new helicopter
Ryan "showing" Nathanial how to fly it
After a slow moving day we finally made Christmas dinner and ate just after 6. We had ham, mashed potatoes and gravy, cheesy broccoli, and rolls. We kept it simple and had all our favorite things.
Christmas Dinner 2013
Nathanial made this tree in art
Nathanial learned a new song in school and thought that it was pretty funny to sing...
We had a wonderful Christmas once again and want to thank everyone for their wonderful gifts. We love seeing our children's eyes light up when they open their gifts. There really is something magical about this time of year.
My favorite thing this Christmas season was a billboard that was posted throughout Sioux City that has the dark night sky with the 3 wise men being led by the star to the stable where Christ was born and across the top it says, "Jesus is the reason for the season"
I can't believe that Nathanial turned 7 on December 9th, where does the time go? Next year he will be baptized! This year for his birthday he wanted a hamster. We decided that he was old enough to get one. The day after Thanksgiving Ryan and I went out and purchased everything that was needed except for the hamster, which we wanted Nathanial to pick out.
Nathanial decided that for his birthday he wanted to go out to eat at Olive Garden. After dinner we went to the pet store to let Nathanial pick out his hamster. He wanted a black and white one so he could name it "Oreo". He had to settle with grey and white.
Nathanial and Oreo
We decided to go out to eat on Nathanial's birthday and do cake on Ryan's birthday. Nathanial wanted a "construction" cake...
Birthday Boys
Blow out candles
For Ryan's 30-something birthday he got a puzzle ball and a game.
Christopher was playing when all of the sudden he says, "Daddy you are 31 you should be dead because that is old".
Christopher had his first wrestling tournament on Saturday, November 30th at East High. He did a great job! He ended up taking third place! He weighed in at 38 lbs. which put him in the lowest weight bracket. He wrestled 4 kids, one of which was a girl. The first kid that he wrestled he won by points (he was really tired after that!)
Christopher with his 3rd place medal!
The first part of the video clip is of Christopher wrestling a girl and he pins her. The second part of the video is Christopher's first ever wrestling match...
The week of Thanksgiving my mom came out to visit. We took her to "The House of Q" which has the BEST bbq! While we were waiting for our food Christopher made this person out of his hat, mittens and torn pieces of napkin--he is our Picasso...
For Thanksgiving we invited the Sister missionaries over and asked them to invite any inactive members or any investigators that they wanted. They ended up inviting a less active family, a less active sister, and an investigator. In the end it was just the less active family. We decided to have dinner at 5. This had its ups and downs. The ups--we weren't rushed to get dinner going and we didn't have to wake up early. The downs--after dinner it was the end of the day and we didn't have time to do a lot. The highlight of dinner was this fabulous turkey that Ryan and I cooked...
One of my favorite parts of the day was that my mom held Benjamin and I was able to cook/spend the day with Ryan! It was fun to work with him in the kitchen!
