Christmas Eve/Christmas

We had a pretty good Christmas Eve and Christmas--it was small but nice.  My family was all in Orlando and we didn't have any of John's family this year so it was just the six of us.  We had a delicious Christmas Eve dinner (clam chowder, pear salad, pretzel jello, and sourdough bread), and had our own little program. The thing about a small group is it goes by pretty fast so by 7:30 we were ready for our Christmas movie!  We actually couldn't find the one we were looking for (Elf) so John got Smurfs from the redbox.  That was about as good as you can imagine.  Then we set cookies out for Santa and it was bedtime.  Santa came, the kids woke up in the morning at 7 (the earliest allowed time), and we had a fun relaxing morning of opening presents and playing with new toys and games.  

 Our little Christmas Eve dinner.

 The kids in their Christmas Eve jammies--they had wanted to put them on since Christmas Eve morning and asked at least 10 times throughout the day if they could open them.  

 There were little screams from Lucy when she opened her Frozen doll.

 There was lots of Lego assembly Christmas morning. 

 Wes enjoyed his Santa jammies and a new "snotsucker" for Christmas.  

 Esther with some of her Lego friends highschool.

Santa finally brought Isaac some boy dressups for the house.  Now he doesn't have to resign himself to the princess dresses that dominate the dress-up box.  

In the late afternoon we headed into Salt Lake City to see the lights on Temple Square and we also hit Little America for their Christmas buffet with our friends.  It was cold but nice to get out.  On the way home we stopped and visited Iris (and Grandma and Sam) and put two candles on her grave.  Two for the two years she's been gone for Christmas.  When we got home the kids did some American Idol xbox game singing with their friends.  Who knew they would love that game so much.  Santa is pretty darn smart.