Christmas 2016

The day finally came!  Christmas on Sunday is always a little different... we have church at 10 am so we decided to just keep it pretty simple before getting ready to head to our meeting.  The kids got to find the treasures in their stockings first.  Santa scored big time with the Tic Tacs.  Ethan thought it was pretty funny that they were so excited about them.

After everyone had gone through all the stuff in their stockings, we opened the gifts from Mom and Dad.  Somehow Ethan managed to find a Doctor Who LEGO set for Bryant for pretty cheap and it was a dream come true.

Jonas got a drone which he still hasn't mastered, but he thought it was pretty cool.

With Levi's excitement over seeing the Tokyo Tower a few weeks before we thought this awesome little Tokyo Tower building set was perfect for him.  When he got right to work building it after church we knew we were right.  Its so good when that happens!

After church we enjoyed our video chat with Grandmas and Grandpas.  They got to be "with" while we opened our presents from them.  It was so fun!

Great G & G Woodbury weren't able to watch us open their gifts, so we tried getting the kids all together to post a thank you video to instagram.  I also tried to get a good picture and you know how that goes... The boys love, love, love their blankets and Eliza loves her little house and bunnies.  Whew!

Our BX had some amazing deals on LEGOs before Christmas so I even got the biggest kid his own set.

One of my favourite traditions that we have is exchanging handmade gifts.  This year was no different.  Its so much fun for the kids to make something special.  I love the one on one time I usually get to spend with them as they work, too.

I tried to get pictures of each item, but I missed some.  Here's Jonas working on the scarf he made for Bryant.

Levi was so committed and worked hard on his eye string art for his dad.

Bryant made Bolton a cozy, soft pillow with flannel and minky.  It was a big hit.

Levi was really confused when he opened his gift from me.  "Did you make this?!"  Its a Literature text book... but he figured out eventually that its a secret book box for hiding treasures.  

Later still in the day we opened up our family gifts.  We finally got ourselves some of those awesome magnet tiles!  They are hands down the toy that has been played with more than any other in our house since Christmas.  Everyone loves them!

Ethan spent a few hours working on putting this awesome jet together.

He had some willing helpers, too.

I got a new toy, too!  And its probably been played with as much as the magnet tiles!

The day after Christmas these boys worked together to make this castle.

We pulled out the LEGO set that we got for the family and put it together for our FHE activity on the 26th.  It was fun, we paired off and each pair got to make one part of our set.  We had a car, a helicopter, a house/dock, and a boat.

The kids do an exchange with their cousins on Ethan's side of the family.  We didn't receive all the gifts in time for Christmas, so we made all of them wait until they could open them at the same time. They got their gifts a few days after Christmas.  Eliza was thrilled to get her own LEGO set!

Bryant loves his Legend of Zelda knick-knacks.

Abe couldn't be happier with his dinosaurs.

And we have laughed and laughed as we've played the game Jonas got!

Levi was so happy that he got his own flag football set for Christmas, it was one of the only things he asked for.

We were all spoiled rotten this holiday but we had so much fun celebrating together.  We also had so much fun choosing fun things for each other and to send back to family in the states.  We feel so blessed to be living here, even though it makes it hard at times when we'd love to be with family.