Hoppie Family Pictures-Again

We had pictures taken on December 17, but we were unsure if they would turn out, so when we got together for "Hoppie Christmas" mom had a neighbor girl take pictures again. 

Loot Pictures!

 Serena with her many presents.  Her big Santa gift was a DS.

 Aleeya showing off her prizes!  Santa gave her a lego piano that really plays.

 Taylor's items-the big joke is he got car air freshener, which is not pictured because the girls have hidden it.  It thought this was a good gift-since he always is buying it!

 Spencer's gifts.

 Diana's presents.  My big gift was a Kindle Fire from Taylor, maybe that is why air freshener seems lame!

Carter, so happy he received a Wii.  The magnet board in back was decorated by Carter and is for his room to display all of his school items.  The girls also got cute display boards for their rooms that didn't make the pictures.

Best present under the tree!

 I wanted to get pictures of this darling outfit that Carter gave Spencer for Christmas!

This is Serena's favorite pose, probably because we always go "Awww, how cute!"

Christmas in Logan!

We have the tradition of declaring a different day in December as Christmas Day in Logan so that we can keep the fun going!  Carter is sitting by Kim and Kody putting the personalized letters on  his new art kit, their gift to him.

Serena opening her "My First Princess"Ariel doll.   Aleeya got Cinderella.  These are the only pictures I took, but the kids got AMAZING presents from everyone and we got so many!  Kim had the good idea of giving each kid a box to keep their presents in so that they didn't get lost in the wrapping and boxes.  Aleeya was hilarious, she would just open her present and then go right to put it in her box.  It looked like she was just opening the presents so she could store them.  A girl after my own heart!

Christmas Day!

 The "Before" picture.

 Carter went for this present first.  He had gotten up at 6 a.m. and I was feeding Spencer so he came down and looked at all of the presents and had found the present from him to Santa.  I made him go to bed again, but he didn't fall back to sleep and just did a count down of time.  Finally, at 7:19 a.m. I told him to wake Taylor up so we could get started.  He also woke up the girls.  Lucky for him Santa came through and he opened up a Wii.

 Aunt Staci stayed overnight with us and enjoyed the morning festivities.

 Carter got Serena and Aleeya jewelry and purse sets.

 Carter has been asking for a watch for months and kept setting deadlines; I need a watch by this Ute game, or by this school event etc.  But his mean mom made him wait until Christmas.

A Ute teddy bear was Taylor's gift to Spencer.  He loved it!

Dearden Christmas Party and Nativity

  He just looked so cute I needed a picture.  He spent the day on the counter by me as I got food prepared for our Alan Dearden Christmas party.

 Acting out the Nativity Story.  Taylor read the story, amid Carter storming off and general chaos of many childen, but it is the early years and I am telling myself that one year this will be really spiritual.

 The Shepard, Aleeya, visiting baby Jesus, Mary and Joseph.  Alana, the Angel, looks on.

 Angel telling the Shepards!

 Serena was really excited to be Mary, earlier in the day I had tried to convince her to let her cousin be Mary since our family would have the Joseph and Jesus parts, but she really wanted to play her. 

Christmas Presents to deliver!

Gifts to be given.  For neighbors, friends and teachers I made a little bag with shower gel and a poof that said "May your Holidays be "showered" with joy."  For the cousin exchange and my sister and sister-in-law I made FHE packets; color copied, laminated and ready to go.  This took way more time than I would have thought!  Conversation Jenga was also a fun gift this year; number the Jenga blocks and then each number corresponds with a question from a provided list, so when you draw the number you answer the question.