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December - Christmas at Home

Aunt June joined us for Christmas Eve dinner, making and decorating cookies for Santa, and acting out the nativity.  June was an angel, I was a shepherd, Tad was Joseph, Alexa was Mary, and Tyler wanted to be a donkey.  Alexa rode into the living room on Tyler's back until he collapsed and she smashed him into the carpet, resulting in some mid-nativity tears.  Tad ran around like a crazy person.  As usual, it was very entertaining.  But wonderful to focus on the true meaning of Christmas and spend it together as a family.  It was soooo nice to wake up in our own house Christmas morning, the first time since we had kids!  I loved not having an agenda and just spending the day together as a family.


Alexa's favorite Christmas gifts included a dollhouse and a rainbow leopard beanie boo.  She asked Santa for an art set and a beanie boo.


Tyler was very excited about a bow and arrow and remote control car.  He picked out gifts for everyone in the family and was so cute and excited when anyone would open his gifts.  What a sweetheart.  Alexa gave him a Lego Batman set and he and Batman used the grappling hook to rescue people all over the house, my favorite was when I found Batman hanging from our ceiling fan using his grappling hook. Tyler asked Santa for a superhero action figure.



Tad has recently been obsessed with fish--he even draws pictures of fish all the time that are amazing for a 1 1/2 year old--so he got 2 little goldfish for Christmas.  At the time I'm writing this on January 2, one of them died today and we think it was probably because Tad fed the fish shredded cheese yesterday :(.  Also, he thought the camels in our nativity were dinosaurs so he had them fight each other and rawr.  He loves his baby Liam and wants to hold him all the time.  When he's not holding him, he goes wherever he's napping and tells us all "shhh!" because the baby is sleeping, as he tries to stroke his head in the bassinet.  He also wraps his stuffed animals in burp rags or blankets to swaddle them and pretends to feed them.



Liam is still cute and cuddly.  He is definitely our biggest baby with his chubby cheeks and endless rolls.  Also, he started to smile this month!


We got Christmas snow!  It wasn't much, but it was our first snow of the season and considering the weather the week before it was truly a Christmas miracle.  We had snowball fights, built snowmen, snow angels, played at the playground on swings and teeter totters, and did lots of sledding.  Our neighbor Daniel also gave us a huge snowman and the kids love him.  They say bye to "Frosty" every time we leave the house and Tad gives him hugs whenever we come home.






We went to a live nativity in Mona, Utah that was wonderful.  I hope to make it an annual tradition.  Young Living has a working farm and their employees all took on the roles of angels, wise men, shepherds, etc. to share the Nativity story.

We had a fun Swingle Christmas party and cool Aunt Peggy got all of the kids light-up Rudolph noses :).

Alexa's big news is that she got married last month!  Kyle and I weren't invited, but Tyler was there and so was the groom's 8 year-old sister, who married them and also encouraged the new bride and groom to kiss following the ceremony. I found out from the groom's grandmother that there was a wedding--she offered me her congratulations ;).  Here's the lucky boy, our neighborhood friend Tennyson.


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