We had a very fun Christmas! We got a Planetarium membership from Grandma and Grandpa Squire this year, so we gave it to the kids early and spent Christmas Eve morning exploring the planets and watching a fun Imax 3D movie about lemurs. There were a few new exhibits since we had been there last and Beckett was finally big enough to really have fun walking on the rocks on Mars.
After our Planetarium excursion we headed home and napped the babies and cleaned up the house. That night we had our special chicken scampi dinner with the Curnow's. We loved having them over! The table turned out so pretty and we ate up all the scampi! Mel made grated carrots and salad to round out our meal. The boys were excited they got to have goblets this year.
After dinner the kids got to open their Christmas Eve present, which was jammies of course! They are always pretty excited about new jammies. Beckett loved that his were the same as Davin's. Once everyone was ready for bed we read the story of Christ's birth from Luke and then sang Silent Night Lullaby. That's always one of my favorite parts of Christmas. We finished up the evening reading the rest of our book advent books. It took awhile since there were four books left! After that it was time to leave out See's for Santa and send the kids to bed. They were so excited!
Mel and Brad stayed a little longer and hung out with us while we did some Christmas prep and cleaned up the kitchen. Ian and I watched White Christmas and did some wrapping/assembling. Luckily I had done most of the wrapping ahead of time, so it wasn't a super late night. Santa came!
The kids asked if they could get up early to open presents. They suggested 6:45 and I thought that was pretty reasonable. Right on the dot of 6:45 they woke us up. But I made them wait on my bed while I brushed my hair and teeth and put in my contacts. We started with stockings upstairs. Beckett woke up while we were doing stockings and he was pretty happy about opening presents. I think his favorite gift of the whole day was that little talking Belle train. Davin was slightly less thrilled with his new underwear. Haha!
When we were all done opening stockings we headed downstairs! Talia and Beckett immediately played on their new presents while the big boys ripped into theirs. Davin was seriously the cutest. He was SO happy he got the huge Lego set he asked Santa for AND another set he wanted. Weston was happy with his Nintendo 3DS. The little ones got Octonauts toys from Santa, in addition to the mini trampoline and slide they got.
Ian handed out tree presents and we had fun doing gifts. By 8am we were done. :) We had souffle and cinnamon rolls for breakfast. The rest of the day was pretty quiet just playing with toys. It snowed Christmas night and most of Christmas Day. Ian took the kids (except Davin who didn't want to go) sledding at the school in the afternoon. Beckett wasn't a big fan and asked to go to the car after about 10 minutes. Talia and Weston had fun sliding down the hill though.
I didn't want to cook another big dinner so we did appetizer dinner on Christmas day. I made artichoke dip and little smokies. We had a few other fun things too and everyone was happy. Christmas with little kids is so fun and magical. Such a good day!
The day after Christmas was pretty quiet too. I got all of Christmas taken down and even managed to shop a little on my own. Saturday we got up early and went to our friends' 30th birthday party at a movie theater. Beckett loved the train ride in the lobby of the theater. The rest of the break was pretty chill. Ian and I had some organizing projects and the boys built Lego's. Here's Davin's finished flying phoenix (from the Chima Flying Phoenix Temple). Hooray for a very merry Christmas at the Bowles house!
