All Things Christmas!

December was filled with all sorts of activities and celebrating Christmas.  It was a lot of fun and the kids enjoyed all the new things and experiences.  I got tired though...and was happy when Christmas was finally over.  Isn't that awful?  I think we did too many things.  Next year we will have to pick and choose a bit better instead of doing everything.  Anyways, here are the many pictures I took of our adventurous Christmas season.

The kids loved putting the ornaments on the Christmas tree.  Nels and I had to be okay with clumps of ornaments in one spot instead of strategically placed all over the tree.  :)

But it was magical watching them put the ornaments on and to be all excited about it.

At night they would take the jingle bells off the tree and we would sing Christmas songs before bedtime.  I enjoyed that.

Isak had his step ladder so he could reach up high.

And another day, Kira dressed up with her tutu, sunglasses and the necklace she laced.  Cheese.

The first Monday in December I happened to look on the library website and noticed the handbell concert was that night.  I asked my neighbor if she wanted to come with me and the kids (Nels had to work late).  She said yes.  So we went to the half hour handbell, sing-a-long Christmas songs concert.

The kids were pretty captivated with all the handbells and singing.

It definitely got us in the Christmas mood.

We also went to the Christmas Ward Party.  I tried to get pictures of us.  We all dressed in red...but these are the best ones.

You could put cut out paper ornaments on the trees.

It was a fun ward party.  Even if the twins wouldn't look at the camera for one picture.  :)

Nels's mom prepared a big Gingerbread House making day.  She made real gingerbread cut out pieces for our houses and lots of candy.  The kids used graham crackers.  They loved putting the candy on the houses. AND eating it.  Holy cow.  It was hard to make them stop eating it!

This is Isak's house.  I just let him put candy wherever he wanted to once I got the graham crackers put together.  He loved it.

Nels's Mom...gingerbread house maker extraordinaire.  She is standing next to Isak's house.

Nels's sisters and mom...left to right...Britta, Mom, Anna-Lisa and Kierstin.

Isak with his house.

And I tried to decorate a house.  I really did.  But it did not turn out.  I am not even good at decorating my own house.  I felt overwhelmed and made Nels take over.  haha.  He handled it better than me.

Other's worked masterpieces.

This picture may look familiar.  We posted it on Facebook to announce that we were having boy/girl twins!

Isak and me with his house in front of the Christmas tree.

And Nels and Kira with Kira's house.

I think Nels ended up doing a lot of the decorating while Kira ate the candy. haha.

So he gets a picture with the house by himself.

And another outing.  Frosting sugar cookies.  Wow.  Isak loved doing this and he spent a lot of time making sure his cookie was completely covered in frosting.

Kira would put some frosting on the cookie and then lick it. :)

And Nels decorated his nicely.  I did not.  I put one color on and then ate it.  I wish I was better at these type of things.

Nels and his dad with their cookie creations.

Isak finally ate one of his frosted cookies.

I have wanted to spend Christmas Eve with my family for several years now.  So I was extremely happy to be able to participate in the nights festivities.  My whole family met at my sister's Kari house for dinner.  Kari's husband smoked ribs and turkey and we all brought different sides to go with it.  Mmmmm. Good!  Here's a few pictures.

Isak was just being adorable.

After dinner we watched the older kids perform the nativity story.  Then it was time to open up the traditional pajamas.  The kids and Nels waited patiently.  :)

We also exchanged sibling gifts and gave our gifts to our parents as well.  Aunt Melissa had our family and she gave the kids Magformers.  It was a hit!  Some of the other cousins helped them play with it.  She also got us Christmas plates!

Here's our kids with their Christmas pj's and Nels is wearing his new BYU pajama pants.  I got matching BYU pajama pants too.

And here's my big happy family!  My how it has grown.  And it will be growing some more with my sister's twins and our twins joining the family.  Yes, my parents will be grandparents to 3 sets of boy/girl twins and a total of 24 grandchildren.

So that was Christmas Eve.  It sadly came to an end and we drove home in a blizzard.
The kids slept the whole way home and stayed asleep when we put them in their beds.  Nels and I set up Christmas (gratefully all the wrapping was done so we just put the gifts under the tree) and went to bed a little before midnight.

Christmas morning!  Yay!  I tried to get a pic with me and the kids and our pajamas.  This was the best one.

The twins LOVED unwrapping presents.

After the stocking gifts I tried to get a pic of them in front of the tree.

Kira was pretty excited that she got another stuffed horsey!

Isak got another stuffed doggy.  :)

And after all the unwrapping Kira put a show on for us in her tutu, pajamas, new slippers and sunglasses.

We enjoyed a yummy breakfast.  Bacon, orange juice and apple dutch oven pancakes.

We spent the rest of Christmas with my family at my sister Melissa's house.  We played games and ate more yummy food.  And then Christmas was over.  I think we made a lot of happy memories!
Here's a picture my sister Mandi took of us on Christmas Eve.  We are all looking at the camera!  I love this picture.  Thanks Mandi!

I hope you all had a wonderful Christmas.  And now there is less than 9 months until Christmas 2016!

November Wrap Up

And now for the random pictures of November. 

We went to Kneader's one day for lunch.  Wow.  It's a crowded place.  Someone doesn't do very well with crowds.  But we did our best to have a good time.  Isak is really branching out and trying new foods.  I love it!  He ended up eating quite a bit of his daddy's sandwich, much to daddy's surprise.

Since it was November, we thought we should start buying the kids some winter attire.  The first thing we bought were these waterproof mittens from Costco.  The kids were so funny.  They wanted to wear them whenever they went outside for a while.

"This is how you sit for a picture." That's what Isak is thinking...heehee.

It was a sunny day...

We spent quite a bit of time at the BYU Bookstore helping Nels purchase all of the BYU clothing he could possibly want.  :)  Luckily, there is a section where the kids can read old books and play with huge stuffed animals.

Here's Kira just reading to her new giant horsey friends.

Isak reading a book too.

Kira has started asking, "take a picture of me."  When she thinks she is being cute.  heehee.  So this is one of those times.  She was pretending to sleep with all of her blankets.

One of our big outings for the month was a soccer game!  We all went to the Women's BYU soccer game.  It was quite the outing.  We had just potty trained the kids a week before.  And so we spent a lot of time in the port a potties.  haha.  

They played Utah Valley.

We were happy that we did see the one goal scored by BYU for the win...1 to 0.

This is how Kira felt about the whole thing.

I tried to help her to be happy though and we all did have a fun time.  I sure enjoyed seeing some soccer!

Nels got to go to a BYU football game with his dad.  And he got to ride in his dad's Jeep.  It was a pretty good day for Nels!

A lazy morning relaxing on the couch.  They actually sat near each other!

Another time at the BYU Bookstore...Kira riding her horse.

Best pic I could get of Isak.

Kira pushing her hair back...when she doesn't keep her bow in her hair...it's a mess.

I don't really remember what happened.  But they purposefully made a mess.  So I purposefully made them clean it up.  They actually did a good job too.

Just hanging out together.

Another, "will you take my picture?"

Isak needed one too.

Isak and Kira riding the Bear.

Kira was eating yogurt and made a mess.  She happily explained, "I'm a Messy Mouse."

Ever since their birthdays and blowing out candles they like to have candles in their muffins.

They even ask me to sing "Happy Birthday" and then they blow it out.

I am making a quilt for both kids.  Isak loves the tractor material and stole the squares.  He made his own blanket...since I wasn't fast enough. haha.

Eat your vegetables daddy.  :)

"take my picture."  Another pretend sleeping picture.

And our biggest accomplishment for the month of November...both kids are potty trained!  This is the only pic I took of the crazy event...they sure look cute in their underpants.  I won't go into the long story of potty training.  But I will give a short summary.  I did a 3 day potty training.  The first day was incredibly awful!  The second day, I was in the ER and my mother-in-law helped out.  She said they did well.  Day 3 we had no accidents.  And we continued to all improve.  Knock on wood, they even do well at night.  I am just happy to be done with it.  :)  I think I was dreading potty training from the day they were born.  haha.

Combing daddy's hair fancy.  That's what they say...fancy.  :)

Blue tongue from a dum dum.

Thanksgiving came and went.  Sadly, Kira and I got really sick.  So Nels took Isak to his parents and they helped put up the Christmas tree.  We had put ours up the day after Thanksgiving too.  Isak loved putting ornaments on the tree.

Far Far helping Isak.

Poor Kira.  One day she was crawling up the stairs and goofing around.  Her arm slipped out from under her and she got a huge floor burn on her chin.  We put a bandaid on her chin...it wore her out and she fell asleep on the couch sitting up.

The kids decided it would be lots of fun to dump all of their toys into a laundry basket and then sit on it.  Silly kids.

And that's November.  Potty training, birthdays, thanksgiving, soccer game and lots of pretend sleeping pictures.  :)