A Crazy Christmas

Christmas was busy this year!  Louis' sister came home from her mission the Sunday before Christmas and his older brother flew in from Pennsylvania with his family on Christmas Eve.  That led to a lot of family fun for 5 days straight!

Let's start before the busy stuff though.  We were able to stay home as a family for Christmas Eve and Christmas morning again this year.  It is so nice being together with nothing much to do.  We started out our Christmas Eve celebrations with a candlelit dinner together.  It was fun and may become a tradition.  We had ham, red potatoes, pears, corn, and rolls.  

After Louis and I finished dinner and were waiting on the girls we talked about the birth of Christ

 and filled in a paper nativity I had printed out.

Then we were able to open up our jammies and a new Christmas movie.  This year we got Home Alone, one of Louis' favorite Christmas movies.  Once we all changed into our jammies Mary helped me pop popcorn and we watched our movie.  

Then it was time for bed!

While we were sleeping Santa made a visit to our home!

On Christmas morning our kids actually slept in!  I don't understand why they don't 

sleep in on days when I'd actually like them to.  I ended up waking them both up!  

It was such a fun Christmas morning!  We started out opening our stockings from Santa.  This year he left us each a small box of cereal to eat for breakfast!  What a nice and thoughtful Santa.  After we ate our cereal we opened up our gifts.  

Avery and Mary both enjoyed their morning and their presents.

Once all the presents were opened we cleaned up then packed up to leave!  We headed down to Louis' Grandparent's house for Mary's nap then over to the Brandley's to be with family.  

We gave and received presents, talked, laughed, ate, and had a great time!  

The day after Christmas we had Brandley family pictures.  

It was the first time having the whole Joel Brandley family together in quite some time.  

After pictures we went to lunch then Alisha, Megan S, Megan W, Celestial and I went shopping.  

On Saturday Avery and Mary got to go sledding for the first time!  They both loved it!  

Later in the day it was Louis' little brother's court of honor.  

On Sunday it was Louis' sister Kamila's homecoming.  

She did a great job, she really enjoyed her mission and served so many.  

Such a great example that Kami!

Later in the evening we headed over to a Keeffer family Christmas party.  I didn't bring my camera in and got no pictures.  While we waited for dinner to be ready we all sat around talking.  The little kids LOVED playing with Gizmo!  Dinner was delicious and dessert (cherry berries on a cloud) was great!

After the party we headed home from our long weekend away.  It was so great to be around family for so many days.  It was a lot of late nights for our girls, but lots of fun!

12 Days of Christmas

Louis had so much overtime this year leading up to Christmas.  I could tell it was wearing on him and I wanted to do something to cheer him up and get him through the weeks leading up to Christmas when he'd finally get a break.  I decided to do a 12 days of Christmas.  I thought up some ideas and got to preparing!  The hardest part was waiting until 12 days before Christmas to do it!  Here's what I gifted him with:

Day 1:  Summer sausage and crackers

 Day 2:  Homemade Oreos

I don't make these often so it's really a treat!

Day 3:  A massage, because he's always giving me them 

and he hardly ever gets them in return!

Day 4:  Breakfast in bed.  I didn't get a picture of this one before he had eaten it all!

Day 5:  A thankful note from me.  Filled with many reasons of why I'm thankful for him.

Day 6:  His favorite cereal!

Day 7:  Driving around in our jammies to look at Christmas lights.

Day 8:  A homemade Christmas card from his girls

Day 9:  Watching a Christmas movie as a family, he chose A Muppet's Christmas Carol.

Day 10:  A beautiful fireplace so Santa can come!  I've done this two other years

and Louis really likes it.

Day 11:  Wrapping Avery and Mary's presents together

Day 12:  Some Hershey Kisses to wish him a "Merry Kiss-mas!" 

Louis enjoyed this and said his favorites were the thankful note and the Oreos.  I had fun doing this or Louis and Avery liked helping out when she could too.  We love our Louis and are so thankful for the hard work he does for our family.

Preschool

We finished up our first year of preschool last week.  It was a great year of learning!  Avery has progressed so much and we've had a lot of fun.

These pictures are from our first month of preschool 

Her first worksheet!

These are from the second month, I had started adding in more worksheet to work on things other than just letters.  We ended up doing counting, patterns, and shapes this year.

These last pictures are from our very last week of preschool for the year!  Our A-Z review.

We will be starting up again probably the second week of January.  We'll see how well I can keep up with things with a newborn in the house.  I plan on adding in addition/subtraction and sequencing this year.  I'll possibly continue adding things in, but that's what I have planned for now.  

I am grateful that I can do this with Avery (and Mary soon) and that she loves learning!

All About Louis

Louis:

is 27 years old

Louis' Personality:  

Louis is fun!  He loves to be silly and enjoy life.

Louis likes everyone to know that he is a manly man.  He is tough and strong.

Louis is a happy person.  He stays positive even when things are crazy.  

Louis Loves:

Louis loves to do things for people to make them smile.  He is very thoughtful.  For example:  In our old ward the Primary president mentioned at an activity that she really likes Pier 49 Pizza.  A week or so later Louis came home with a gift certificate to Pier 49 Pizza then went and doorbell ditched the Primary president with it.

Louis loves making treats.  He is amazing at it!  Whenever we go to a party he is usually the one who makes a dessert to share.  I am usually the one who gets thanked for it! :)  I just smile and say, "Louis made it!"  People always seem shocked.

Like I said in the previous section, Louis likes to be a manly man.  He loves guns and bows and hopes to get his own bow soon.  

Louis loves sleep.  He doesn't get much of it at this time in his life though.

Louis loves his girls.

Louis loves being with family.

Louis Knows:

Louis knows that there is more that he does not know than that he does knows.

Things Louis Can Do:

Louis can figure out how to fix just about anything.

 Louis plays the saxophone.  At least he did in high school.

Louis can BS his way through just about any college paper.

Louis can quote a lot of movies.

Louis is one of the most patient and happy guys I know.  He is loving, strong, happy, and kind.

We  love Louis so much and are so grateful for what he brings into out home!

To read the "All About Mary" post, click here
To read the "All About Avery" post, click here
To read the "All About Becca" post, click here

Christmas Traditions

For the last 8 years or so John and I have watched the same two Christmas movies each year.  How the Grinch Stole Christmas (with Jim Carrey) and The Santa Clause.  It used to be on Christmas Eve, but now that we're both married and live an hour apart we do it when we can around Christmas.  Last night was the night this year for us to watch our movies.  This is a tradition with just John and me because we were the last two kids left in the house growing up so we were the only ones together to watch these movies!  I think it's really fun that we've been able to do it for this long.  Hopefully we'll be staying close enough to each other that it can continue.

My favorite Christmas movie night memory was in 2007.  John thought my lotion smelled so good that he couldn't help tasting it.  It didn't end up tasting good.  Then he gave it a second try.  It still didn't taste good.

2014

2013

2012

2011

Another tradition of ours is the Indian underwear.  This one has been going on since John's senior year of high school.  He played an Indian Chief in the play Peter Pan.  My friend Brittany and I made him a headdress, got beads, and decorated these wonderful pink granny panties.  He put on the headdress, he put on the beads, but he refused to put on the underwear!  

Ever since, John and I have been hiding them back and forth for each other to find.  My favorite places:  John's scripture bag to discover in seminary and the back of a picture frame with pictures of us both wearing the underwear.

Today while getting the girls ready for bed I opened up Mary's pajama drawer and found these!

It was hilarious!  Now to think of a great way to return them to John!