We had a wonderful Christmas this year!!! We stayed at home for Christmas Eve and Christmas morning so we could be with just our little family. It really made it feel so magical to be at home with our children!
We did great at video-recording Christmas morning this year but forgot to take pictures! (Last year I took tons of pictures and forgot to record!!!)
It was a wonderful time for us together as a family, sharing out love for the Savior and each other! Here's how we celebrated our Christmas week:
Church Party:The kiddos dressed up as shepards (and we brought our little friend, Annie). Olivia kept her cosume on almost the whole time! I was very impressed!
Then we continued to
DECK THE HALLS!!!!
(My Christmas countdown on Christmas morning! Brady never let me miss a day of changing the numbers!!!) We also enjoyed several fires in our fireplace during family games and while having friends and family over for dinner.
I know I already showed a picture like this in one of my decorating posts but I just had to show it again because we got lots of wonderful cards from family and friends!!! I LOVE getting mail (when it's not bills!!!) and especially at Christmas time to stay in touch with so many loved ones scattered around the world!!!
I made three bautiful poinsettias arrangements to put around my house. I just barely finished decorating for Christmas a few days before Christmas and Chris said, "You know you're going to have to take these all down in a few days, right?" I thought about it for a second and then told him that I decided that they're too pretty- we're just going to have to keep them up for the rest of the winter!!!
I bought and beautiful garland 50% off and then strung some lights around it. It made the plant shelf look so pretty but now I'm going to have to find something non-Christmasy to replace it with when I take it down!!!
And lastly, our front door! We didn't have the extra money to get Christmas lights for the outside this year and we did have candles in the windows but they weren't very bright. However, our front door is beautifully illuminated by our front light and it showed off the wreath very nicely!!!
Christmas Eve:Christmas Eve morning started out "eventful" as I recieved an early phone call from Chris at work syaing he'd just taken a bad fall down the stairs outside of work and possible broke his tailbone. The poor guy suffered through the rest of the day at work (although he did get to come home early at 1:00 pm for the rest of the day. He had a brand-new employee and a "green" employee so he didn't feel comfortable leaving the office. I told him he needs an x-ray on Monday; it's totally black-bruised!
After some rest in the afternoon we went out for our traiditional Chinese. We have a tradition of either getting take-out Chinese or going out for Chinese on Christmas Eve. Brady asked us why we do this and Chris said, "Because the Chinese celebrate Christmas the best!" Brady thought that was pretty funny and we did enjoy the food (although I ate too much, as always!)
That night we came home and web-camed with my folks. My mom read the kids a book and then we got the kids ready for bed and read them "The Night Before Christmas" from a little book ornament that I've had since I was a little girl. The night before we'd read some books about the Savior and have been talking about how we celebrate Christmas as Christ's birth.
Cookies for Santa:
And Santa even wrote a letter back to Brady =)
We kissed the kids and tucked them into bed and then I got busy in the kitchen and Chris got busy in the livingroom putting together the kid's big gift- a play kitchen!
It was so much fun "playing Santa" and Chris and I felt so happy to be having our first Christmas in our own home together as a little family! We finally got to bed at about 12:30.
Wake-up Call!!4:00 am- the FIRST time Brady woke up!!!
6:00 am- the SECOND time Brady woke up! I made him sleep with us in bed for about an hour before we got up. I had to go wake up Olivia and we made a big deal with the kids about going into the livingroom because we had the doll bed and the kitchen all set up for them!
Opening presents!!!
We recorded them coming into the livingroom. Olivia ran right to the kitchen and started playing (never even noticing the baby bed and the bedding that I made her!) Brady just kind of looked around for a minute and then he said, "Whoa! Is that what Santa brought me?" Then he caught on and started playing too! It was fun to watch them play so happily together! Olivia liked the play food and the kitchen more than I even anticipated and she didin't even try to put it in her mouth!
We had a wonderful time opening gifts!
A sum of what we got:Hannah:
pot and pan set from Macy's!!! I have only had one 3 quart pot and 1 frying pan our whole marriage! When we were in Maine it wasn't a problem because I could borrow from my mom whenever I need, but when we moved back to Idaho it quickly became a nuisance! I've become really interested in cooking over the past few years so I hated being limited in what I was able to prepare!!! To say the least, I was VERY excited (thanks Chris!)
Toby Keith's newest CD (yeah, that's right, he's a stud!)
Harry Potter DVD
calendar
Maurices gift card
Chris:
DVDS: Terminator, GI Joe, Angels and Demons
giftcards: Walmart giftcard, Longhorn Steakhouse gift card, LIDS gift card for a new hat
back warmer (the kind that you plug in and sit back on...very nice heat therapy) Chris and I both got one of these!
YAHTZEE
new electric razor
Brady:
play kitchen and TONS of felt food and kitchen stuff (that I made or "re-vamped") and lots of "cowboy" kitchen stuff from mom mom too
TONS of new books
Games: spelling/reading card game, spill the beans, pick-up sticks
Lincoln logs
DVDS: Little Rascals, The Return to Witch Mountain, Up, Bolt
stuffed animals, new pj's, socks
magnetic dart board (to hang in the garage)
Olivia:
mini baby doll
new bedding and re-vamped baby bed
books
DVD: Snow White
Kitchen set (same as Brady- I made at least 2 of everything for the felt food!!!)
new outfits, pjs and hair bows
drum and a piano (for their music box)
Breakfast:
We started a new breakfast tradition this year of having fruit and breakfast casserole. I put everything together the night before so all we had to do was cook the casserole while we opened gifts!!! My Aunt Donna told me later in the day that she has an awesome coffee cake recipe that they always have on Christmas morning so I think next year we'll try it out along with our breakfast casserole! (I'll post the recipes on my recipe blog...I still need to get back on their and give it a face-lift!!!)
(Olivia liked breakfast. In the words of Brady: "she gobbled it right up!!!")
Clean-up, R&R and Dinner Prep: Chris and I spent the next couple of hours cleaning and putting away all of the new toys. Then he headed to the couch to relax and give his tailbone a little comfort and I headed to the kitchen to start dinner!!!
Our dinner table:
The Menu:
salad w/ feta cheese, raspberries, pomegranites, glazed walnuts and poppy seed dressing
Roasted Pork loin with cranberry-orange glaze
Roasted baby potatoes with herbs
Garlicky Sauted Green Beans
Creamed corn
Rolls
Sparkeling cider and egg nog
Dessert: Gingerbread Pumpkin trifle
The Company: 
It's always hard to be away from family at the holidays but we were lucky to be able to celebrate Christmas with Chris' family. They came for Christmas dinner and it was wonderful to spend time together! We ate, ate, ate and then opened gifts, visited, watched Mr. Kruger's Christmas and The Santa Clause. Brady played Lincoln Logs with Grandpa, and Chris, Brady and the girls played darts, then we had dessert and said our goodbyes! (Grammie and Grandpa Graf were nice enough to take Brady back to their house for the night so we could get some rest- A BIG THANK YOU!!!)
A tuckered Olivia climbed right up in Auntie Shawnae's lap and fell right asleep!
We hope you all had as wonderful of a Christmas as we did in celebrating the birth and life of Our Savior, Jesus Christ and the love of families!!!
I also spray-painted this little pie plate red (cherry pie still in progress) and I found these cute salt & pepper shakers and spray-painted them brown and then added some foam letters to them.
I thought the cupcake tin came out adorable spray-painted!!! 
(I also found this cute red and white checked placemat, set of 2 at D.I.!!!)
I re-vamped my little dolly bed that I had since I was a few years old by spray-painting it dark brown (to match the kid's bunk bed) and making some coordinating "cowgirl" bedding. I still need to make a cow-print pillow and add some fringe to the denim pillow...
