Christmas Greetings

We had a wonderful week for Christmas down in Pasco.  It was great being able to spend time with my family.

Will had to work on Christmas Eve and my siblings in Utah couldn't come until Thursday, so we decided to celebrate Christmas morning at our house in Umatilla.  We decided for our Christmas tradition breakfast to make cinnamon rolls.  The girls help me spread some butter.

We told the Nativity story and Megan was pretty fascinated by all the wooden pieces.

Then on Christmas morning we let the kids each open a few presents before driving to grandma's house.  They loved the new phones they received.

Down in Pasco and Rachel is decorating the Christmas tree.  Most of the tree was decorated by the time we got there, but some soft ornaments were saved for my little girls.

As tradition, we got a picture of Megan in her stocking.  Thanks to my grandma and my mom for making the stockings.

Here we decorate some gingerbread cookies.

Here is our family on "Christmas" morning.  Whitney was very excited about all those presents behind her.

Megan was also very excited about the presents; she kept trying to reach for the one that was under her.

This isn't a great picture, but we tried to get a picture of our whole family right after church.  We are going to keep working on getting Rachel to put her hands down.

Anyway, there were tons of other pictures.  Too many for the blog but we had loads of fun with games and walks and movies.  What a fun family.






 

He (They) See You When You're Sleeping...

...They know when you're awake.  They know if you have been bad or good.  So we have been using our elves on the shelf and they have been in some fun places around our house.

A little elf reading an intense book.

An elf trying to get into the rest of Rachel's and Will's birthday cake.  But we caught him just in the nick of time.

The girls love looking for the elves in the morning; they jump out of bed to go find where they are hiding.  Here an elf is on a Christmas box and covering it with stickers.

An elf actually in a shelf, that didn't actually happen very often.

An elf was caught cooking something for us.

Rachel stands by an elf that managed to get into the cracker box.  It is hard to tell from the picture, but the elf has broken a cracker and left some crumbs on our table.

Megan checks out one of the elves.  She gave it a couple of smiles, but she mostly just tried to shake it off her legs.

One of my favorite elf on the shelf places was them on the table unrolling a paper towel roll.  The girls determined they were being "silly", instead of naughty.  Anyway, it has been fun hiding them all around and watching the girls search for them.  We will definitely be doing it again next year.


P.S. The elves determined that the girls have been mostly good, so they will receive presents from Santa this year.

Some Happy Birthdays!

We have had two great birthdays here in Umatilla.  Will turned 31, but I think you are suppose to stop counting at 29.  And Rachel turned two (technically, not until the nineteenth, but that is too confusing for her).  She kept saying that she was now three, but I think we finally convinced her that Whitney was three and she is two.  Here are some pictures of our two birthday people.

I hid the letter to Happy Birthday around our house for Will to find in the morning.  It was fun to hide things from another adult because then you really get to hide something, not what I do when I 'hide' things for the girls to find.

Will gets some help opening some presents early Sunday morning.

The girls made this little card for Will.  They painted puzzles pieces and then told me reasons why they like their dad.

Whitney came up with all the ideas by herself, no mom prompting.  She picked things like 'Goes to work' and 'Fixes the car' and 'Changes poopy diapers' and 'Plays outside with us'.  It was really cute having her make the list and think of things she likes about dad.  I think Will really liked the present too.

My family came on the Saturday between birthdays for a joint celebration.  Rachel was pretty excited to open presents, but then she would give the presents to my dad, which was humorous.  I am not sure why grandpa was the present holder, but it was cute.

Whitney watches Rachel open a big blocks present. Whitney was very good at letting Rachel open her own presents, but she did watch very intently to see if Rachel would need some "help".

Rachel smiling with all her presents.  She got a baby and blocks and candy and a little toy train and some puzzles, all kinds of good things. 

Whitney and Rachel help frost the birthday cake.  There ended up being a huge hole in the middle where Rachel kept just jabbing her knife, but it was barely noticeable with some extra frosting put on top.

Here Will is about to blow out some candles. The girls went a little candle crazy and he had like 36 candles on his cake, but he was still able to blow them all out in one breath.  Good job.  Rachel also had a turn to blow out candles, but she wouldn't do it.  Maybe next year.  Anyway, I think a very merry (technically unbirthday) was had by all.

Santa Pictures

We had two opportunities to try to get Santa pictures.  I wanted a good one for Megan's scrapbook, but Whitney seemed to be the only one who really liked being with Santa.

This Santa came to the tree lighting ceremony that was outside the Umatilla city hall.  Rachel was only willing to sit with Santa with Whitney around.  But they both got candy canes at the end and they were happy.

Megan seemed not too interested in looking at Santa.  I think she is barely hitting the stranger danger phase.

Everybody waiting for the tree lighting.  It was really cold, so everyone was bundled really well.

The tree looking all pretty in the background. 

Santa also decided to come to our ward Christmas party.  That was surprising because we thought he wasn't coming.  So here we wait in line to go see Santa again.

Whitney was very happy to see the big red guy again.  She gave big smiles for the camera.

Megan didn't like the feel of Santa's beard, so she looked at him for a second and then started crying.  Rachel wouldn't sit still long enough to get a picture.  Oh well.  At least I have a few pictures for scrapbooks.

Finally, Santa's helpers arrived at our house.  These are the elves for elf on the shelf.  They hide around the home to report to Santa on whether the kids are naughty or nice.  The girls like looking for them in the morning.  So a good beginning to the Christmas season.

Turkey Tom

Poor Tom the bird had a horrible weekend all around America.  We quite enjoyed him in the Tri-Cities with our family.  It was a wonderful Thanksgiving for us Keelers.

Before Thanksgiving, we did a couple of little crafts.  Little hand turkeys get done every year.  I did one for Megan too and she did not like opening her hand for the paint and then opening again to get the paint washed.  After the paint dried, I asked Whitney and Rachel what they were thankful for.  I think Whitney understood the concept, Rachel kept pointing to her painted hand and saying "that one" - whatever that means.

This is Whitney back in Pasco helping get things set up.  Her job was to put three mnms on each plate so everyone could say three things they were thankful for.  For all that hard work, she got some extra mnms to snack on.

You can see the turkey behind us.  My parents have a turkey roaster and the bird turned out delicious and moist.

Everyone digging into the delicious food.  My sister Kylee surprised everyone by coming home for Thanksgiving.  She is going to BYU - Idaho and we weren't expecting to see her.  So that was a fun surprise.  And the food was super delicious.  Thank you mom and dad and everyone that helped.

Rachel enjoying her pie.  It was a chocolate ice cream pie.  Whitney decided she didn't like pie and just ate marshmallows for dessert.  Maybe next year.

And not really a Thanksgiving picture, but this was Whitney's favorite thing at grandma's house.  She liked to wear it and try to scare people.  I think Rachel was the only one really scared of the mask.  Anyway, we had a great long weekend.