Christmas 2009

Christmas this year was a very different experience being away from home. We had a great time visiting with family and really enjoyed our time with them. I think being away from them really makes our time spent together more "quality" time. Our first stop was to our old neighborhood to visit with some great friends. Our girls had such a great time playing with friends and getting hair cuts from our favorite hair lady (thanks Kristen).

Christmas Eve was spent with the "Phillips" gang at Micah's parents home. Each year we eat yummy food and wait for Santa to pay us a visit. He always brings us a fun gift to open to start the Christmas festivities. We look forward to our Christmas Eve party all year.

Abbie was fretting over what to ask him for. It's hard to narrow it down to one last request on Christmas Eve. She finally decided on a lava lamp for her new room.

Santa makes Avery very nervous if you can't tell from the picture. She is definitely keeping her distance, but she did it (the present in his hands is a great incentive).

Aliza is not so sure of this big red man either. Can you blame her?

Of course Micah and I get our one last requests in also. He asked for warm weather which he got when we pulled into Vegas.

I asked Santa to send his elves over to paint our house, after all they are done making Christmas toys for the year. He politely informed me that they hated painting and would not be making the trip for me. Bummer.

This crazy bunch is all of the cousins on the Phillips side of the family. What a great looking group of kids! Tradition is that we all get new P.J.'s to wear to bed Christmas night. Micah and I even look forward to this tradition.

Making a human pyramid is always fun (unless you're on the bottom). As you can imagine it didn't take long for this to come crashing down.

Christmas morning was spent at my parents home. We had a great time opening presents with them and having a yummy breakfast. Avery's favorite gift this year was a box of makeup from my parents. All she wanted to do is put on more and more until her face had a permanent pink tint. We then made the rounds to see great-grandma and exchange gifts with their cousins. Then we headed back to my parents for more yummy food, and time with my sister. The day was exhausting, but fun. The next day was crazy too. We squeezed in family pictures, shopping, and dinner with my cousins. As much fun as we had we were glad to get home and just spread out and play with our new toys.
This little guy was a fun new tradition we added to our family this year. We named our elf on the shelf Fredrick Hansel. The month of December he was with our family and he will definitely be missed until he returns next year. Each night he would return to Santa and report on how well our kids were behaving, then he would reappear in the morning in different spots in our home. We found him hanging from lights, on high shelves, and even in each of their rooms. He was a fun tradition that we can't wait to continue next year. The story is that he flies away with Santa on Christmas night until next year. We will miss you Fredrick Hansel!

We had a fantastic Christmas. We can't wait to visit Utah again soon and be able to spend more time with our friends and family with out feeling rushed from place to place. Especially having time to let our kids play with their friends. We will be visiting again soon.