God Bless Us, One And All

The day has been spent, so far, in the kitchen with my circus.

Chicken
Butterscotch Chocolate chip Cookies (The Man is quite certain that these are Santa's favorite so we made three dozen for him)
Sugar Cookies
Frosting
Wassail

We've been watching Santa's progress on Norad (here)
We've been swapping treats with neighbors all weekend long

The snow has started to fall.

It's going to be a white Christmas after all.

The stockings have been hung.

The tree is lit.

The presents are wrapped and under the tree.

Twas The Night Before Christmas and The Bible (Luke chapter 2 to be exact) are sitting next to the tree, ready for tonight.

It's about time to make the kids put on nice clothes and do their hair so we can drive through the snow to my brother's house where we'll laugh and bond as a family.

Things couldn't be more perfect today.

I'm thankful for my Savior, Jesus Christ, who was born and who spent his life so that I might have a chance in mine.

Not only do we celebrate His birth, but his life, his example, his love.

His atonement.

His resurrection.

Merry Christmas to you on this blessed night.

God bless us, one and all.

Our three days of Christmas

With the swapping my ex Thanksgiving for Christmas it threw our schedule off.  Normally we have both exes on the same weekend and same holiday schedule, so we either have all our kids and can be together as a full family, or we get to be together as a couple.  We like it this way.  But with the switch it made us a little off.  So we had to have two Christmas Eve's and two Christmas mornings, one with Jayme and Sean, and the regular one with the other four girls.
Christmas eve eve:
Christmas eve eve started with lunch with Grandma KC and Aunt Jessica and her crew at Cafe Rio.  Grandma decided to come for a visit for the holidays and this would be the only day while she was visiting that we would have the full circus.  She'd been working for a year and a half on quilts for all her grandkids and they were finally done.  The kids got to tell Grandma what colors they wanted their quilts and they were super excited that they were finally done.  I didn't get a closer pics of Sean, his was done with Sponge Bob material:

That night we celebrated Christmas eve eve.  And of course, no Christams eve eve is complete without a family throw down while watching Christmas cartoon specials on TV:

And of course, the pajamas.  We just gave them comfy bottoms this year so that would be why they're all raising knees and legs.  They wanted to make sure their bottoms could be seen in the picture:

Christmas eve morning Jayme and Sean got to open all of their presents from us, and we let all 6 kids open the presents for the names that they had drawn with each other.

And Papa Mike showed up with his gift, sleds for the entire family:

Which will be awesome if we ever get any snow this year...
I made our traditional Swedish Pancakes for the kids and then Jayme and Sean went off the spend the rest of the holiday with their mom.  Sad for us.
The rest of us cleaned and cooked for the family Christmas eve dinner.
I love my family.  They make me laugh.  My mom was there, with my brother Bill and his family, and my sister McKell and her family.  As well as the world's most awesome father-in-law, Mike.  We laughed and giggled and ate a lot of food.  Thank you to pinterest for the cheesecake filled strawberry idea! Oh, and we had fun watching Sam-I-am and the dogs tease each other:

We also watched Santa's progress across the world with Norad Santa Tracker which was so exciting, even for me.  I think that's going to have to become a yearly thing.  Cali pleaded with me as she went to bed, "Mom, please don't stay up too late.  He's getting close!"
Christmas morning was as magical as it should have been.  Cas got her long awaited for camera and the other girls got their American Girl dolls, which of course, looked just like them. 

And being as Christmas fell on a Sunday this year Santa brought the girls Christmas dresses for church:

Santa also brought me the softest robe I've ever felt in my life *sigh* and Grisham's new book :).

And don't forget about the puppy boys who got a nice cushy new bed:

And although we certainly enjoyed the gift giving and receiving, we didn't forget about the true spirit of Christmas.  There was much love and gratitude expressed and their was a wonderful peace in our home.  As well as, for me, thoughts of my Savior Jesus Christ and not just his birth, but his life.  And his atonement for me.
I have been given much.

Christmas eve

A tradition that my neighbors have is to light luminaries down the sidewalk of the entire street. Both sides. I missed it last year because I was at West's enjoying the gingerbread fiasco, and I had a neighbor light mine. This year the timing was right for me to go home right after dropping the circus off and light them.
It was a serene feeling to look up the street and see it lit up. It sort of brought home for me the feeling of love, hope, and brotherly kindness that I've always felt amongst my neighbors. A combined effort along the entire street to bring an extra wish of "Merry Christmas" to each other.

West's gingerbread fiasco

For Christmas eve we decided to make gingerbread houses with the kids. West figured if he made the ginger bread himself it would be soft enough to eat when we were done. Although this idea sounded good, it's not actually what happened. The pieces of gingerbread were as hard as rocks! That didn't stop the circus from creating some of the wildest little houses (or in Brynn's case, a garden) that you've ever seen. Kudos to West for watching all six kids and making homemade gingerbread while I worked. Now there's a real man :).

Sean was the most persistant at making his just right. It was huge and it stood together all of 30 seconds, just long enough to take the picture.

Brynn couldn't find any pieces that she liked to go together for a house so she created a garden around the North Pole. Merry Christmas, Santa.

Tayler filled her house with worms, and topped it off with a chimney.

Jayme covered every inch with candy, and then proceeded by pulling it all off and eating it.

Casidee had Santa bear waiting on the roof for the three little bears inside to go to sleep.

Cali's actually looked like a typical gingerbread house! It was gorgeous.

West was on one that night and I could NOT get a decent picture of him. I finally gave up!

Merry Christmas girlie girls. What a gorgeous Christmas morning with jus the five of us, it couldn't have been more perfect or peaceful.