The Brown Family: December 2011

Saturday, December 31, 2011

Christmas with Granna and Granstan

After church, we went to my parents house to celebrate Christmas with them. Before we let the kids open their stockings, we tried to get a few more family pictures. We even got a pretty good one of my entire family.

The kids enjoyed opening their stockings from Granna and Granstan.

After lunch, and while Lily and Ryan napped, we opened presents. I didn't get a lot of pictures, but I did get this cute one of Eden and Aubrey showing off their new princess dresses and Ryan modeling his new winter hat!

We had a great time spending Christmas Day with Granna and Granstan! I am so lucky to have such a wonderful family that loves me and my kids so much! They spoiled us all and we are so grateful for everything they did for us this holiday season!

Friday, December 30, 2011

Christmas 2011

One thing that I love about living in the same town as both sets of grandparents is that we never have to travel on Christmas. Another perk is that we never have to split our holidays or decide who we will be with during the holidays. Instead, we get to spend quality time with both sets of grandparents. We also always get to spend Christmas night/morning at our own house with just the five of us. It is such a special time to me and I treasure the memories we make with the kids on such a fun day! This is how we spent Christmas morning this year:
We ended Christmas Eve by getting ready for Santa and his reindeer. The kids were excited to get the cookies and milk for Santa and the carrots for the reindeer on the plates. Imagine our surprise (and a little disappointment) when we discovered that Cory had accidentally eaten all but one of Santa's cookies. Oh well, I guess the jolly old man's New Year's diet had to start a little early this year!

After the cookies and carrots were safely placed on the fireplace, we headed outside to sprinkle our reindeer food on the lawn so that the reindeer would not miss our house!

The kids went to sleep fairly quickly and awoke on Christmas morning to discover that Santa had visited our house in the middle of the night! Lily loved her new doll stroller and Parker could not wait to color in his new HUGE Lightning McQueen coloring book!

Next we opened our stockings. Cory had a lot of help opening his!

After a disappointing breakfast (I made coffee cake, which turned out great and was delicious, but the kids wouldn't even take one bite), we let them open their presents. Eden had been looking at her BIG present under the tree for several days and could not wait to open it! She was so excited to discover that it was a new Dora dollhouse! Since Christmas, she has played with it more than I could have ever imagined and asks for it as soon as she wakes up in the morning!

Parker had no idea that we had bought him a new Playstation game called Rayman. Cory had downloaded a demo of the game a few weeks ago but the demo only had two levels. Parker had been playing the same two levels over and over again and kept telling Cory that maybe one day they could get the rest of the game. The look on his face when he opened his present and the excitement he showed when he realized what it was was worth every penny we spent on the game. A few days after Christmas, completely out of the blue, Parker said to me, "Mom, thank you so much for my present!", so I know he really loved what we got him this year. Not only does he love to play the game with Cory, he also loves to "read" the game's instruction manual and will sit for an hour just pouring over the pictures and words!

After presents, we went to church where we enjoyed a special Christmas morning service celebrating the birth of our Savior before heading over to Granna and Granstan's house. Overall, it was a wonderful Christmas morning in the Brown house!

Wednesday, December 28, 2011

Christmas with Granndma and Papa

We started our Christmas celebrations with Cory's family on Christmas Eve. They came over to our house for dinner and presents. We started the evening with an attempt to get a family picture and then let the kids open their stockings before dinner.

After a yummy dinner (thanks Dr. Ranelle for the delicious brisket!), the kids finally got to open their gifts from Grandma and Papa.

Eden loved her new Ariel princess doll and has slept with it every night since Christmas.

Parker (and Cory) loved his new remote control truck!

And Lily loved her new blanket with her name on it! She, too, has slept with it every night since Christmas!

The most exciting gift of the night was given to Parker by his Aunt Sondra- the Angry Birds pillow that he always has to look at when we go to Wal-Mart. He was SO excited about it and then became even more excited when Cory opened the matching pig pillow. They both ended up in his bed that night and he now can not go to sleep until they are both in bed with him.

We had such a nice evening celebrating Christmas Eve with Cory's parents and sister and are so thankful for all they did for the kids.

Christmas Pajamas

One holiday tradition that my mom started the first Christmas we had kids was buying all the grandkids matching/coordinating Christmas pajamas. She always gives them to the kids on Christmas Eve so they can wake up wearing them on Christmas morning.

This year their pajamas had snowmen on them, which is great because they can wear them all winter long. We realized on the morning of Christmas Eve that we weren't going to be together that night to get pictures of all of the kids in their pajamas, so we just ignored the fact that it was the middle of the afternoon and dressed them in their pj's for our annual pictures. The kids did great and cooperated throughout the entire photo session. I will not lie- we might have bribed them with getting to open a present if they smiled and that seemed to work beautifully!

Parker and Addison- "The Bigs"