A Very Merry Christmas (Part Two)

I have been quite busy lately and not home, but I figured that now I better finally finish posting about our fun Christmas with my family.

Will's family each gets one name to do for Christmas.  So we gave presents to the Guptil group (I hope you liked your gifts).  And we were given presents by Will's younger brother, Dave.  We decided to open Dave's presents before going down to Pasco.  Here, the girls help their dad open his presents.  Thanks for the Avatar movies.

Whitney and Rachel love their new stuffed puppies.  Rachel keeps insisting that hers is really a kitty.  Thanks for all the presents, Dave.  It was fun opening them and seeing the happy faces.

While down in Pasco, we made our traditional present for Jesus.  I taught the Relief Society sisters in my ward and we made presents for Jesus in our December activity.  I knew that I would be doing it with my family, which is one of my favorite Christmas traditions.  This year, I want to give out two copies of The Book of Mormon and I want to work on some of my personal history.

Here is our family on Christmas morning.  It took a couple of tries, but we got everyone looking forward and not completely covering their faces.

The beginning of the present opening.

Megan opening her little foam sword.  At first, Megan was a bit grumpy and only wanted to open like two presents.  But then when she saw there were things under the wrapping paper, she got into the spirit of gift-opening.

The girls also got swords and had lots of pretend sword fights with their uncle Conner.

Whitney has been asking for some dress-up clothes.  We didn't have very much variety.  But now we have a lot.  Thanks Mom and Dad.  Those will definitely be a hit.

My sister's little baby, five-month-old Tessa, learned how to open gifts.  She was quite good at it too.

And not from Christmas.  But this big ball lives at my parents house.  Megan wanted it upstairs.  She wanted lots of big things to come up the stairs and would cry when she got stuck at the bottom of the steps because she couldn't climb while holding them.  

Anyway, we had a great Christmas.  It was fun spending time with family and just being together.

Our Merry Christmas (Part 1)

As tradition, we went down to Pasco for Christmas.  A couple of my siblings traveled to be there also.  We were able to do lots of fun things together.

But first, Will asked me what we wanted to do for 'Christmas' morning breakfast, which we celebrated the Tuesday before Christmas.  We made funnel cake that tasted pretty good.  Unfortunately, we were running out of time, so I turned up the oil too high and burned the last couple.  Oh well.  There were still enough for everyone to enjoy.

The legendary Griggs sale.  We went down to Pasco when Will got home from work and after quickly eating, we went to Griggs. My mom was nice and stayed home with the kids.  Here we sit playing games while waiting for the next hourly raffle.

The next morning was tree decorating time.  The girls all thought that was pretty fun.

Megan did pretty well.  She only pulled down a couple of ornaments that had already been put on the tree.

Of course, Christmas means baking.  Whitney and Rachel got to help Grandma make the traditional Danish pastry for Christmas breakfast.

And Rachel got to help make Jell-O. 

We always act out the Nativity story on Christmas Eve.  I was the narrator, so not in the pictures. But Whitney and Rachel were sort of sheep or wise men, depending on their mood.

                                     

  

And it isn't Christmas time without a little ding dong ditching/caroling.  Whitney and Rachel were very willing participants in the ditching and running.

My mom rented a kids movie for the girls to watch on Christmas Eve (I think to help everyone stay downstairs).

Anyway, those are some pre-Christmas festivities.  It was a fun holiday.  I hope everyone else had a great Christmas.

Rachel Turns Three

Rachel's birthday was last Friday.  I can't believe she is already three years old.  Here she will be going to primary with Whitney in a couple of weeks.  We celebrated with my family on Sunday.

I kind of forgot about decorating the house for the birthday.  So we decided to make a little poster.

The girls put on a lot of stickers, a lot of stickers.  You can kind of tell that it says Happy Birthday Rachel!

We decided to do brownies for her birthday because those seem more loved than regular cake.  All the kids were very good at taking turns stirring.

Lighting the candles (Rachel picked out her own candles and she was super excited about them).

It took quite a few blows, but Rachel finally got all the candles blown out.  Such good perseverance. 

Rachel got lots of presents.  Megan really wanted to help open them.  The promise that she would get to open lots of presents in just a few days was not tempting enough.

Rachel got toy cars and coloring books and some new pants and some crayons.  And some candy, of course.  Pringles and Whoppers are like the tradition in my family growing up.

Out of all the presents, the headbands were opened first.  I thought that was pretty amazing.

This isn't a birthday picture, but it was too cute to not put on the blog.  Megan had been feeling sick for a couple of days, so I didn't know if she would have a chance to wear this dress for Christmas because I didn't know if we would take her to church.  But she seemed to be feeling better Sunday morning.  Isn't it a pretty dress?

Anyway, we are all getting very excited for Christmas and for my sister's wedding.  Okay, bye!

Some December Happenings

First, I have to wish my sister a Happy Birthday! And Will's sister a Happy Birthday yesterday. Tis the season of celebrating.  Anyway, we have done a couple of little things throughout this month to prepare for Christmas.

We only did a couple of crafts.  I usually do better.  Oh well.  One was a marshmallow snowman.

The marshmallows stuck to the glue a lot better than cotton balls, which I have done before.  So marshmallows will be used in the future, and the kids got to sneak some while doing their artwork.

We still only have our little Charlie Brown Christmas tree.  We thought about getting a new one this year; we have too many ornaments and not enough tree.  But it isn't worth having to fight Megan the whole month since she loves the bright Christmas lights.  Whenever we go to another house that has a real tree, it is a struggle to keep her away from the lights.  But maybe we will brave it next year.

The elves have reappeared this year.  They are mostly pretty good elves.  Whitney took this picture of the elf in the scrapbooking box.  If only we could teach her to not put her finger in front of the camera.

What a helpful elf - making some toast for our breakfast.

This was at the ward Christmas dinner.  Being in the Relief Society presidency, I played a big part in getting this dinner together (a bit stressful).  More people come to this dinner than any time at church.  We ended up with just enough meat, potatoes, and rolls.  And pie for dessert.  Poor Will had to help the kids because I ended up setting up, serving, and washing dishes.

There was a little program.  Whitney got up once to be part of the primary singing.  I didn't get a picture of that though because I had the camera and I had to stand up there to convince her to stand up there.  Oh well.  I mostly just heard people singing while washing dishes, but everyone said it was great.

We made our traditional chocolate covered pretzels.  They are delicious.  Whitney and Rachel managed to eat all the extra sprinkles in a very short time.

I made these little gift boxes to give to the Relief Society sisters as a little Christmas present.  They have a variety of candy inside with a little note wishing them a very sweet Christmas.  I think they are pretty cute.

Not really Christmas-y, but I like the picture of the girls matching.  I was also wearing a red shirt (but not purple pants).  Aren't they beautiful?  So that is our Christmas preparations.  Maybe I will buckle down and find some other crafts or treats to make.

A Happy Willie Birthday

It was Will's birthday yesterday.  I think he had a good day.  We celebrated a joint birthday for Will and my dad on Saturday.

My mom gave me a cake mix and frosting so we could make the cake.  The frosting was very bright blue, which was humorous.  Rachel helped me frost it.

And Will next to his cake (with plenty of sprinkles in the middle).

We managed to find two candles.  So Will and my dad each got to blow one out.  We sang to both of them at the same time.  I think they were even singing along.

Will gets the first piece of cake.  It was strawberry flavored and pretty good.

The girls and I each made a card for Will.  I rummaged through our stickers and everyone had fun.

The girls liked "helping" with the present opening.  Just in case the dads forgot how.

We all went to Taco Bell for lunch.  Funny story.  My girls had never been to Taco Bell before.  On the drive, Whitney asked if we were going to Tinker Bell.  So we told her it was Taco Bell.  And then when we got there, she asked if there was any magic there.  I think she was a little disappointed.  But that didn't last long while she just ate a bunch of chips for lunch.

This was the highlight of Taco Bell.  Everyone wanted some of the icee. Thanks family for coming up and for the yummy lunch and the presents.

And the day was ended with a little video game playing, hard to beat that.

For Will's actual birthday, I made him some of his favorite - Double Chocolate Chunk Cookies.  They have melted chocolate in the batter, chocolate chips, white chocolate, and macadamia nuts.  Then we surprised Will during his lunch at work.  So it was a good birthday.