christmas!

Ah, Christmas! We had a super Christmas month around here, one of the best Decembers ever. Mostly because I said no to a lot of things this year, like Christmas cards and goodie plates for every single person we know and elaborate homemade gifts. And blogging, too, apparently. I said yes to a whole lot of amazon shopping and saved my gigantic self the bother of actually leaving the house. It was great!

I did this in part because I am enormous at 7 months pregnant and mostly because I couldn't say "no" to the ward Christmas party that I was responsible for this year. You know, because Young Womens presidents who are 7 months pregnant have a lot of time on their hands... and that's all the whining I will do about that. It is over and it was reasonably successful and hopefully I will be in charge of a different activity next year. Like no activity whatsoever. Just kidding! Sort of...

So here are a few highlights from our magical laid back December:

We got our tree from a tree farm this year. Talk about the best of both worlds! We have tried to both ways - tree lots and BLM-style - with varying degrees of success. Tree farms are 100% guarantee! Everywhere you look there are gorgeous trees, just waiting to be cut. All you do is wave your little flag, and a nice man with a tractor and a chainsaw shows up, and there you go! Sam really loved the tractor and the chainsaw.

We made our annual gingerbread house, courtesy of Costco.

On Christmas day, we opened presents galore, went to church, opened a few more presents, and spent the rest of the day relaxing in our sweats, eating delicious food (like cheese! Thanks, Dad and Miranda!), and wishing the day wouldn't end.

Eve's favorite gift: a box full of Warriors books.

One of Sam's favorites: his new robe, courtesy of Grandma, that just happens to look a Jedi robe. Especially when paired with the light saber lollipop that came in his stocking.

Eleanor's hands-down, no-doubt-about-it favorite: the life-sized cheetah stuffed animal that she has yearned after for almost two years. Like Eve said, "This HAS to be from Santa because there is no way Mom and Dad would spend that much on a stuffed animal!" True story. Santa is very savvy with the amazon Black Friday deals.

To prolong the fun, we surprised the kids with a day-after-Christmas overnight trip to see the magnificent Christmas lights at Shore Acres State Park in Coos Bay, Oregon. All the awesome pictures of the lights are on Jared's camera, but I think the highlight for the kids was spending hours in the hotel pool.

I am a little sad to see this December end, especially since I did such a poor job of documenting it in pictures and blog entries. But it's nice to think this is the last Christmas I will spend pregnant and that just one year from now our little guy will be bopping around and joining in all the festivities with us. Makes me excited for 2012! Merry belated Christmas, everyone!