Christmas 2011

Since Max and Kate are older and just a bit more aware of the festivities I wanted to start incorporating fun traditions with our holidays. I didn't do as much as I wanted but it was a nice start and considering our family status with Rhett and medical school this was as good as it was going to get this year. Plus, next year everyone is yet again older and I will have gotten the hang of coordinating life with three littles and being a super fun mom. I hope...

On to the pictures!

1st Tradition: We started off the morning with a fun kid-friendly Christmas themed breakfast. Snowman donuts, a fruit Christmas tree and a yummy orange flavored Greek yogurt dip. No one ate the yogurt but me, naturally the donuts and fruit were a hit!

We were going to wait to open presents for the afternoon when my parents were scheduled to arrive from Utah. Then Max spied the few presents under the tree and we just couldn't wait. We literally had four presents under the tree; two toys to share and a stack of books for each of them. I was quite proud of our spoils as I scored the Little People farm at a consignment store for $7.50 (retails $40!) and the books were $0.69 each at Savers. Woohoo! A Melissa and Doug wooden toy rounded out the main gifts.

Kate wanted nothing to do with opening presents and instead whined and flailed her body around on the floor. Then she perked up when Max was just about through with the gift opening. Max just wanted to tear the paper and moved on systematically to the next gift after it was unwrapped, who cares what was in it!

They were so cute digging into their stockings and discovering the little gifts inside. Two cutie clementines, a retractable tape measure, a wooden airplane and helicopter, a little bucket of dinosaur and jungle animal figures and a candy/toy trinket. Naturally the biggest hit of the morning was the tape measures. They were always fighting over and snitching my tape measure whenever I sew and were thrilled to get their own. Sadly, Kate has already broken hers. 

Playing with the Christmas spoils as I finished getting ready for church.

I just love his eyes here. I only sharpened this image for the web, no color edit.

2nd Tradition: Our Christmas ornaments this year. Rhett got his porcelain 1st Christmas one and we also made thumbprint reindeer ornaments for each of them. So easy and cute! Well, easy if your two year olds cooperate; there were several do-overs, tears and frustrated parents involved. I had also purchased some modeling clay to make more thumbprint themed ornaments but they didn't turn out. Phil used the leftover clay to craft a hot dog? I have no idea why, he doesn't even like hot dogs. This will proudly hang at the back of the tree.

Dressed on our Christmas finery I wanted just one good picture of us all together before we headed off to church. My kids were so happy to oblige.

That evening we hosted Phil's parents, Gramps Gunnell and my parents for our annual German feast. We make rouladen, rotkohl, potatoes, gravy, rolls and roasted asparagus every year. So delicious and worth the time and effort involved. Susan made her fabulous chocolate cream pies for dessert. We very much enjoyed our company and our meal together.

We tried for a family picture again and hooray! Everyone is happy and even though it took blankies, bears and a frisbee to get there, I'll take it. Thank you Rhett for being the only child to actually smile. Little love bug.

Gunnell Grandparents

Gramps and his greats

And I feel like a toad since every time my mom comes into town I talk about taking pictures of them with the kids and it never happens. After taking pictures with the Gunnell's my kids were again being stinks and we called it and said we would get pictures with the Rapier grandparents later. Of course, later never happened. Sorry mom. But we have lots of video of our week with them.



We met with friends to tour the neighborhood Christmas lights.



We drove to Mesa to meet family for dinner and see the Temple lights. This train wagon was a hit with all the cousins.



We loved having Phil all to ourselves and he loved playing with the kids and finishing up Fraiser on netflix. We went to the park countless times and just enjoyed ourselves. It always goes too fast. Whatever will we do now that it is over? Oh, yes, back to school and back to reality.