Frosty at Casa Manana

What a jolly happy soul we met...

We hope you all have a jolly happy New Year!

Krummy Christmas (that means good!)

In Krum, the stockings were hung on the stairs with care...

...in hopes that two sweet girls would soon be there!

(And two daughters-in-law!)

Mimi had many thoughtful gifts as usual...

 ...and Pop wrote the book on "What Grandpas do Best" :)

 Like I said, Krummy means really good!

 We also spent Christmas time at Uncle Kevin's and Aunt Deanna's where we enjoyed seeing lots of sweet cousins, big and little!

 Paxton:

Maddison:

 There's an Easy Bake oven in there...

 Lots of hugs and love passed around...

Merry Christmas to all!

Santa Came!

Dear Santa, I like your reindeer. Tell them we will put reindeer food out on the porch at Nana and Awpa's. You might not want to come to our house because we don't have a chimney and we will be at Nana and Awpa's...

I've been really good, and I really like my Christmas tree. Santa, can I please have a horse and the Barbie doll Frozen sisters on TV that can live in my doll house?

I like my sister Audrey. She really wants a monkey toy. Thank you, Santa! Love, Brenna

Dear Santa, How are you and your reindeer doing? You are so sweet and nice, Santa. Me and my sister are going to make a picture for you again. I've been trying to be really good at my house and at school and at church...

Santa, is it ok if I have a horse Barbie movie, a monkey toy that moves around like a real monkey, and a pink Palace Pets kitty please? Thank you, Santa. Also, can you please bring a walking kitty toy named Daisy for Brenna?

We will be at our Nana and Awpa's with Layton on Christmas Eve because we don't have a chimney for you to slide down, ok. So you might not want to fly to our house. We hope you have a nice Christmas, Santa! Love, Audrey

These little sweeties must have been very good this year! Santa is so proud.

Christmas Eve at Granny's

If you can't tell by the 10 little darlings below, Christmas Eve at Granny's is a special time with lots and lots and lots of family. It gets bigger with each passing year as the kids grow, people marry in and have more babies, and friends stop by. It is a sweet, busy, happy, exhausting, fun, funny, loud, one-of-a-kind, tiring, blessed evening...It has been my Christmas Eve for as long as I can remember.

 I do believe children were buried under the paper this year...and this is only one side of the room...

 We were so thankful to have Austin and Melinda at Christmas this year since they haven't always been able to make the trip across all their states. And next year, we are so excited to welcome a few new babies including our nephew into this crazy, special thing we call Christmas Eve at Granny's.

12 (or so) Days of Christmas

Here's a "12 days" rendition (well, kind of) of our week before Christmas...

20 silhouettes trimmed and framed for preschool parents...

13 new ornaments we've added to our collection this year...

10 Christmas crafts and coloring pages apiece, daily it seems, so we are up to our ears in cute Christmas stuff. But oh, how I love those little handprint and footprint crafts!...

8 friends in cute Christmas hats, and we loved exchanging gifts with them...

7 Christmas parties complete with singing, eating, presents, crafts, and friends...

6 vomiting episodes, all Brenna, short viruses a week apart (but at least we got some sweet together time and they got to open some gifts early in our quarantine)...

5 Santa visits, at the feed store, Casa Manana, parties, and programs (he's everywhere!)...

4 red shoes (they are OBSESSED with these red sparkly shoes yet so festive!)...

2 plumbers plumbing...sorry no picture, but yes, we had to call plumbers for something flushed down our potty...can't imagine which friend flushed which toy...oh, and the potty sat in the yard for a little while so that had a nice Griswold Christmas touch to our decorating.

And a ride in an ambulance (that actually fits to the tune!) Yes, I had to call 911 for the first time. Audrey had a big branch/stick hit her stomach really hard causing her to lose all color in her face and slowly lose consciousness. I had a hard time making her wake up and respond to me even after several minutes of shaking her and tapping her face. So I called for help. She slowly got back to normal, they took her to the hospital for a check-up, and they basically chalked it all up to fainting from pain and lack of air. Not a fun way to spend our Christmas Eve-Eve, but so thankful she is ok.

We loved our weeks leading up to Christmas. We didn't let all of the holiday hullabaloo interfere with celebrating the true meaning of Christmas. The girls were so sweet to remember to acknowledge Jesus' birthday. I will never forget Audrey's prayer: "God, it's almost your birthday. And we aren't excited about the presents or Santa. We are excited that it's Jesus' birthday. But we really are excited about presents and Santa, but we are still excited it's your birthday, too."