Christmas!!!

     This year’s Christmas was by far the best one I’ve had since I was a kid. Addie is at just such a fun age and everything has been magical this year! She absolutely LOVES our house decorations and talks about our pretty house and pretty lights and pretty tree all day long. She even thanks God for them in her prayers, it’s so sweet. I gotta admit, I had a really fun time decorating this year too!

     Sam’s parents brought their dog rusty to our place for Christmas and Addie was on cloud nine. Rusty is her very best friend in the entire world and she absolutely adores him. It was too fun to watch them play together.
     We stayed up playing settlers with Jack and Sherry. I miss playing board games! We hardly ever get the chance anymore and it was fun times:

     Simon got in on the game, but mostly just to have an excuse to chew on Jack’s fingers:

     Addie’s favorite gift this year was probably her Radio Flyer scooter and helmet. She totally loves them! She has been scootering around our house nonstop. I think she wore her helmet for 7 hours straight yesterday

Some big fav gifts this year are the fancy new chairs my mom got for Addie and Simon:

     Among her spoils, she got a memory game, a kiddy video game system for her tv, an elefun, hungry hungry hippos, a great ballerina skirt from my brother Chris, and beauty and the beast. Simon got some blocks, some fun floor pads for when he crawls, and this fantastic knit hat from my sister Becky.
     Sam got a tie bar from Addie, a tie from me, and power tools from Santa! He is in Christmas heaven.

     And me, Sam got me Lego Harry Potter for the 360!

     And no Christmas is complete without some fancy Christmas dresses!

Some other fun poses, one including a pirate smile:

And here’s the dress she wore last year and I couldn’t help but put her in it again this year. It’s about 4 inches shorter, but still fit otherwise. It’s pretty hard to get a realistic smile out of her these days, but this will have to do:

     I can’t start to say how much I love my family and how grateful we all are for this amazing year. We’re grateful for the gospel and for the love we feel from our Savior daily and we really couldn’t be happier with all that we’ve been blessed with. We hope you all had a fabulous Christmas.
     Here is our Christmas letter for anyone who didn’t get the email or a letter in the mail.