Christmas Eve

Christmas was extra fun this year since Paige was such a fun age for all the festivities. (ok, besides one consulting club party we went to where she was the only kid and broke a glass ornament). But she was very into finding the elf, talking about Santa, learning to sing "The Friendly Beasts" and "Jingle Bells", and playing with the nativities. So we had a lot we wanted to pack into Christmas Eve.

We started with a delicious early dinner.

Followed by making cookies for Santa. Paige thoroughly enjoyed rubbing flour everywhere and licking the frosting.

Then onto our traditional Christmas Eve program. We started with a sweet video of a child telling about the birth of the Savior.

 And then piano numbers by Evan and Kyle, Once there was a Snowman by Grace, Jingle Bells by Paige, and group songs including The Friendly Beasts, multiple hymns, and a rousing rendition of my grandpa's special number, The Holy City.

Next was the nativity dash. Paige got to be Mary and Deacon was baby Jesus. My mom, as always, was the angel, and dad was a superhero narrator.

We finished up with exchanging the cousin gifts, loading in the car to look at Christmas lights and getting hot chocolate. The kids fell asleep quickly which gave us plenty of time to get things ready for the next morning. A great Christmas Eve!

Deacon's Baby Blessing

We decided to bless Deacon in my parents' ward on Christmas Sunday. At first I thought it might be odd to bless him on Christmas Sunday, but as I sat there singing songs about the birth of Christ, and held my sweet baby boy, it just made everything feel that much more special. Ben gave him a beautiful Priesthood blessing and we were able to have my dad, Brandon, President Turner, and Bishop Erickson in the circle. We love our sweet little Deacon.

Christmas Break in Washington

Since we had an entire month off from Duke for Christmas break (yes, again, I will miss grad school breaks), we flew to Washington mid December to see family. Packing for this trip was fairly intense since we had to include WA clothes, clothes for Hawaii, 2 car seats, double stroller, and all of our presents, but we did it! (thank goodness for Southwest). This was Deacon's very first flight and he handled it like a champ!

The next few days were filled by relaxing with family and Paige getting in a lot of cousin time. Deacon also went to his first movie, Frozen, which he slept through and Paige completely fell in love with.

We visited Santa at the mall. I had one of those freak out mom moments when all of the sudden as we got to the front of the line my camera wouldn't work. But we pulled out the iPhone, got Paige to reluctantly go up, and then got the real camera to magically work after we were done. Go figure.

One night we were able to meet up with our good friends from our Sears/Illinois days, the Andrews, and finally meet their cute baby boys! It had been way too long and was so fun to catch up with them. Yay for them moving to Washington!

We also had a Warning family gathering where my grandparents got to finally meet Deacon.

And a get together with the Dethmans and Grandma Jean ("Jean" and Gayle still get some of the best welcomes from Paige. She loves them and tends to be on the dramatic side :)

All that mixed in with a lot of candy, shopping, movie date, delivering cookies, and trying to remember to hide that dang "Elfie" (our Elf on the Shelf) made for a great start to our break!