::::

The Santa letter from Max.  I love so much about it.  It's just adorable.  And please note the "quotation marks."

::christmas day!!!!::

 Good morning to Christmas in Santa Fe!! The little ones slept until their normal wake up time (though I actually think Sandy would've slept later if Max hadn't visited his room at some point.) Lucy wasn't up until about 6:45, which is pretty good for her. Max remembered the rule about 7AM being the earliest time we could go into the living room, so though he woke up at 5:50AM according to him, he entertained himself quietly until Lucy was up.

The boys ran out to the guest house (in borrowed shoes it appears) and retreived Grandma.  Then they all had to wait for me to finish getting up after I fed Lucy.  Then everybody got let into the magical living room.  Kris and I had hung up sheets over the living room doors so nobody could accidentally get a glimpse of the surprises.  Such as a Lego table that Santa brought and the boy's Hess Trucks!

 

Waiting patiently in the Christmas footies.



Oh I have to say I like these kiddos,  They're so dang cute.



Sandy said that opening the stockings was "really fun!!"  I think out of everything that Santa brought though, the Hess Trucks were the biggest hits.  The model this year was a truck carrying a spaceship that had a little tiny spaceship scout inside of it.  Awesome.



Lucy got some fun little girlie toys in her stocking to augment the boyly toys that she gets to play with all the time--really most of the toys are very gender neutral, but it was fun to buy a few things with just little Lucy in mind.



Like a pink cell phone--which Max finds pretty exciting I guess.


The Santa letter and response.  Very cute as well.



Lucy demonstrated her standing skills to Kris finally--she can pull herself up!

Then after the stockings we took a breakfast break.  Sandy broke in his new toys by bringing into the bar.  We had german pancakes and a delicious egg/cheese/green chile casserole that Kathy made.  It was a great breakfast.





And back to presents.  Lucy was in LOVE with the paper.







Max picked ot some ski goggles for me.  I'm scared to learn to ski!  But I love the pink.



More Lucy standing skills.



Lucy models her new dress and jacket from Grandma.  She had such a fun day!
You can see Sandy in the background with his superhero cape.  Max got one too and they were a hit!



Kris with socks from our associate doctor.  He made a good call, those Luchadore socks are pretty cool.



The family all sent such lovely gifts.  We're so lucky to have such loving parents and siblings!  Like always I try not to make this into a catalogue of gifts, but more of just a fun overview of the day.



There was a lot of helping and loving and getting along which made me so happy.



And here's Max with his big present--a camera!  He was ecstatic!  I found on that was shock proof and water proof.  It also takes video.  I thought it was perfect.  He couldn't have been more excited and spent the whole rest of the day playing and experimenting with it and gloating over it.



And there's Sandy with his Darth Vader watch.  "Kids never get watches!" he exclaimed as Grandma was putting it on him.

After the gluttony of gifts and a fun facetime with Mom & Dad (I'll post a photo of Mom's amazing creation for me later) we relaxed and played with gifts and babies and watched some Star Wars Phineas and Ferb.  Max put together Legos on the new table and Sandy ran around the house making Zurg and Buzz Lightyear battle each other.

We feel so lucky and blessed to have our little family and our big family. And we are so grateful for the gospel and our Savior.  What a blessing that this magical and amazing time of year can mean so much more than just temporal joy.  We are so grateful for the blessings of eternal family and the Atonement.

Merry Christmas, I hope everyone had such a lovely and blessed day.

::christmas eve 2014 pt 2::

Just a quick glimpse of our "guitar room Christmas tree."  It's decorated with laminated copies of old family photos.



We found a good parking spot and headed down the road--we got there right around five, just when it was starting to really get dark.  The crowds were light at first.







I can't remember if we brought the stroller for Sandy last year?  Anyway, it's much nicer without a big stroller to navigate through all the crowds.



I loved these ristras with the red lights.  I think I'm going to have to get some for next year.


We didn't lose any kids as we walked up the road and back, though the kids did their best to disappear.  It was a nice walk and the street looked beautiful as usual.  We also saw somebody dressed in a full body reindeer outfit, and Kris and I got to have a kiss under some real mistletoe somebody was carrying down the street.

Afterwards we opened PJs and had hot chocolate while preparing to read the Christmas Story and prep for bedtime.



Lucy and Sandy were both really tired and barely staying awake, and all the kids were super excited.

It's always fun to read the First Christmas book, and only reading it once a year on Christmas Eve keeps it in good shape and very special.  I was thinking about how lucky it was I found our copy at the used book store when Kris and I were first married!



Everybody gets a turn with the pop up features.



We got the little ones to bed and had a few minutes with Max before he retired to TRY and TRY to go to sleep.  The grownups had gotten a lot of things organized and prepped before hand, so we only had a few hours of work left to do, thank goodness.  We left the living room looking magical and fun. Kris hung up sheets on the entrances so there would be no peeking, and dogs were banned from the area.

Everybody slept really well with me just getting up once at 4AM to make sure no dogs were eating Christmas.  All was well.



Oh, and I'll leave you with this.  Here is Sandy's bough hung thickly with the ornaments that it was his duty to hang.  It's so cute how little guys hang ornaments--Max used to do it just like this.  Now he's telling Sandy, "Maybe you should hang some of those someplace else?"  The clumps used to drive me nuts, now I just see cute littleness in it.

::christmas eve 2014 pt 1::

We like to close the office on Christmas Eve so we can have a family day.  It's nice to have a whole day together to wind up to the holiday. And it's nice to have Kris there to help manage the crazy crazy excited kids.

Kris and I started the day with some exersize.  While I was getting cleaned up Kathy got the frosting made for our traditional sugar cookies.  By the time I got out there a lot of frosting and decorating had already been done.  So much in fact, that Sandy was nowhere to be found.  He was "done."



Below is a Sandy style frosting and decoration on a hat cookie.


Lucy looked on, patient and entertained in her jumper.



After cookies Kris ran out to get our Christmas tamales and make a dumpster run since we had missed trash pick up earlier in the week (could there have been a worse week to miss the trash truck?).  Anyway, while he was out there he got an emergency call, and it was about a poor kid that was here on Christmas vacation from out east and fell while ice skating and really messed himself up. Kris felt like he had to take care of the teeth, so he did.  Luckily he got done just in time to meet us for our mid-afternoon lunch reservation at the Cowgirl!


We reserved a table in the play area which was great for the kids, but it was pretty cold for us.  Fun though.


After we got home from lunch there was just enough time to relax for a few minutes before it was time to get all bundled up for our traditional walk down Canyon Road.  I put Lucy in a bout 3 different layers.


Sandy was making "floor angels."



Lucy has a onesie, fleece footies, extra pants on top, a pair of Sandy's socks and then she wore her puff coat and a fuzzy hat.  She was not any too warm though, crazy enough.





All prepped and ready to go!!!

::patience::

Little Miss Lucy was so good about the tree and all of the presents. She was interested and intrigued, but she didn't rip or break anything. She's very proud of her standing up skills though.
 

The boys were getting anxious for Christmas and anxious for entertainment, so I broke out a special exciting Lego set for them--Santa's Workshop. That kept Max busy for a couple of days.

 

It also kept Max and Sandy fighting over sleighs and reindeer and Santa's bag and etc. Don't we always need more reaons for kids to fight over stuff?



Anyway, it's a cute set and I'm planning on putting it away and getting it out over next Christmas break for people to have fun with (and fight over).

::haircuts::

Look at these two scrub heads playing with their Sis and the "Penguin Thing."  Sandy's hair was the real problem.  The curly locks are so dang cute, but if not tamed and brushed out and creamed every morning it was a big bush.  And the back of his head got so nappy.  But it was hard to cut off those adorable curls, you never ever know if they're coming back!



But it was time.  We have a great guy at a local salon who trades services with Kris and cuts all of the boys' hair.

Mr. Max Before:




Mr Sand before:


Look at those wings!


And after:



Max for sure wanted to go short--he knew exactly what he was going for.  Evidently earlier in the week somebody had called him Justin Bieber and it had really bothered him.  So the longish hair was out.  And Sandy just wanted to do exactly what Max did.

I think they turned out so cute.  Those are some of the best haircuts they've had in a long time.