Playdate

Over Christmas break, Haylie got together with one of her best friends from school for a playdate. They love hanging out and had so much fun being silly together.

Family Christmas

It's always a treat to spend time with the extended family in Southern CA. We love being able to visit and spend time with everyone who we don;t get to see much throughout the year.

Bekah and James made it from the other end of the country:

I love Gigi!!

The whole fam:

Christmas Morning

Love watching the kids participate in the story of Jesus' birth. What a great time celebrating our Saviour:

So sweet - they are so affectionate and loving towards each other. I am so thankful they have grown to be best friends:

This is a picture of Haylie guessing (correctly) what her present is before she has opened it:

James liked to try out every gift right away:

Pretty sure this was James' favorite gift. Love that silly boy:

Christmas Eve

Christmas Eve we spent in Southern CA attending Micah's home church which we absolutely love!!!

The kids always get to open one present on Christmas eve (from my family tradition). Haylie opened up a photo album I made for her from our trip to Disneyland. It has all her pictures with the princesses and pictures of us all on the rides. Out of all the presents she received it ended up being by far her favorite. I had no idea it would be but it made me realize the importance of special things like that and how much all the toys and shiny things so don't matter. She shows everyone her photo album and can barely remember anything else she got.

Then it was pajama time:

The boys:

The girls:

The James's:

GiGi and the kids:

High-style Haylie

While we were in Southern CA, Grandma took Haylie for her very first little manicure. Actually they just painted her nails but Haylie was very excited and fascinated with the whole thing!

Christmas with Dad

The next night we had Christmas #2 with Papa Louie and Grandma Kathy. Haylie's favorite part was definitely the visit by Sydney. Haylie had hoped for a puppy for Christmas but unfortunately she had to settle for an evening with Sydney. Luckily she is easily pleased.

The girls got art supplies for Christmas which they went straight to work on:

Micah called this an "Ugg"ly Christmas.

Christmas with Mom

Christmas with Momo and Papa this year was fun. Raider always enjoys when the grandparents come over so he has someone to play pool with him.

Cousins:

Sisters:

Poor James really wanted to play with Baby Ben's Christmas present. We had gotten Ben the present earlier that week and James had played with it every day - only I wouldn't allow him to disconnect the cars that came with it so he was eagerly awaiting the Christmas party when he could try out the toy with the cars that came with it. After Ben opened the present, James moved in, but Raider told him to let Ben play with it first. Poor James was sooo sad!

Until he opened his present:

Haylie was quite happy about her pillow pet as well:

Kiley and Lea got little tents for Christmas and the kids had so much fun playing in them:

Micah had a fun time making crepes for everyone:

Brian enjoyed eating them:

We got Kiley and Lea a new puppet theater and we loved watching all the kids do their own puppet shows:

Raider's favorite activity, playing games:

Momo, Papa and the little ones: