Christmas Eve

Christmas Eve Dinner is one of our favorite traditions...crab cheese sandwiches, homemade soup & birthday cake for Jesus & Grandma Kessler! :)  Oh, and a lot of searching for Santa & his reindeer out the windows!

Hmmm...what to do with the giant fluffy Santa?

...get dragged around the kitchen on it!

A lot of Rudolph's nose sightings!!

Singing Happy Birthday to Grandma

Getting changed into....

...Christmas jammies!

Got a little crazy with editing :)

Christmas Carols on the piano with Nana

Papa taking up the cheese factor!

Papa & Brady being little stinkers

It was so nice to have Gina with us for the first Christmas!

Christmas Prep

Here are some photos from the days leading up to Christmas!

Making Christmas cookies at Nana's

The kids had a lot of fun with it this year & were a big help! (sort of...:))

The only picture I got from Brady's church program--he was directly in the middle & I could literally see every other child but him...:)  Here he is looking pretty proud of himself!

A couple pictures from the Johnson's Annual Christmas Party--the best party of the year!!

me and my best bud.

Nana & Papa also took Brady skiing for the first time of the season on the 23rd--they had an awesome time & he picked up right where he left off last year!

This was taken from the top of the mountain--they took the tram ride up to the 11,600 ft peak--you can see the Tetons in the way background!

"Chippy": Our Elf

I had to do a post about Chippy, our Elf on a Shelf!  When we got back from Thanksgiving, we discovered a box that had our Elf and a book about Elf on a Shelf! We learned that Santa had assigned this elf to our family to report if Brady & Liv had been good each day to decide if they belong on the Naughty or Nice list. :)  Each morning they wake up and find Chippy in a different place...Chippy has been on the Christmas tree, has been caught playing with the mini marshmallows spelling the kids' names out with them and even trying to finish the kids puzzles!  He's a pretty funny little guy and it's been such a blast every morning to watch the kids look for him...it's almost been a mini-Christmas morning each day for for the last month!  Thanks to Grammy for this wonderful new tradition--it's been so much fun!  I'm thinking for his last morning with us on Saturday he will be getting into some mischief again...I heard sometimes they make snow angels with flour on the kitchen counter! :)

Chippy was up on Daddy's guitar one morning

We read through the book several times to make sure we understood all the rules...such as you can't touch Chippy or he will lose his magic...you can talk to him anytime but he has been told by Santa not to talk while he's at the house!

Brady's Party

Here are some pictures from the day of Brady's birthday party!  As always, we started with a little breakfast in bed!   I loved the smile that came instantly on his face when we came in singing Happy Birthday with a candle in his waffles! :)

We had the party at Ridge Kids and it was just perfect!  He wanted to invite his buddies from school, as well as his buddies from our family friends & even a few second cousins too!

Along with the play area room we also got to use a huge inflatable slide in the gym!  I tried to capture as many pictures of the kids' faces as they either came down the slide, or had just come down...such a blast!

The Birthday Boy

Maddy, Brady, Brayden & Ben in the play area ball pit!

Sis

Buddies

Part of the group as we're making our way to the gym

There was a big sign the said "It's Brady's Birthday!" He loved that when we walked in.

Ben, Rico & Brady getting ready to head down!

This thing was huge!

The party assistant also organized a few games of tag & duck, duck goose!

Geno, Ben, Bronson, Rico & Bman

Harper & Hadley Holmquist

Oliver, Brady & Keegan getting ready to go down together

It was pretty much chaotic at the bottom!

I love these pictures because it almost shows how much fun these kids were having...totally melted my heart

Little Julien wasn't even 1 yet & basically running around the gym!

Girls Turn!  Maddy, Tahlia & Elsye mid air!

Pizza and cake time!

Star Wars cake and cookies!  Wish I could take credit for them...:)

Here are a few pictures from his actual birthday and his school party--pretty cute!  I brought in ice cream cups like last year & all the years my mom brought those to school for my birthdays...love the tradition!

As if he hadn't been sung to enough!  We stuck a candle in his birthday dinner of spaghetti & he thought that was pretty cool. :)

My handsome boy