It snowed for Christmas, so Henlie told Charlie to bring her snow clothes so we could go play. Unfortunately, we didn't get over to Grandma's with enough time to play before dinner and presents. Fortunately, they were spending the night, so we went over to play on the 26th. It was also convenient for it to snow again since Henlie had just gotten new snow pants.

The girls played and made snow angels. We hooked a sled up to Grandpa's four-wheeler and drove around sledding. Matt made me take McKade around, and we went for quite awhile until my thumb was frozen :) Grandma got out a couple of other sleds and the kids sledded down Grandma's drive. Mocha had a great time running all over the place. Andrew, well Andrew ended up taking a nap. haha


Then it was time to warm up and get some lunch before the Covalt Party that night :)

The day finally arrived, Christmas! Matt and I decided not to "do" Santa as gift-bringer, but this year, Henlie was all about the Fat Man and wanted to know if Santa was going to be coming to our house. Ah well. Thank you, rest of the world and Christmas shows haha. By 12:30am, everything was laid out and ready for the morning. (Truthfully, it was only so late because I stayed up late and was all.... oh yeah, guess I should do that :))

Henlie was up before 7am, although that's not necessarily unusual. I made her wait to go to the living room until Dad was up and I could get there first to video her entrance.

Dad started off with stockings. Our tradition has now become an orange (usually a clementine or mandarin) in the toe and a crap-load of candy. (Stocking stuffers are the bane of my Christmas existence.) This year's ornaments from us from Peru were little, so I also stuck those in the stockings. Andrew was kept fairly content being given (or taking) pieces of candy (still wrapped) and trying to eat them.



Then we moved on to presents. Presents don't take too long since we have vastly downsized Christmas. Having one year being fairly broke sure helped with that haha.

Henlie got two RSL shirts, two pots of Play-Doh (orange and pink), some new bath crayons, a Clifford sticker book, snow pants, and a brand new bed! Grandma and Grandpa Erdmann also gave both kids handmade teddy bears. We got Andrew and Henlie a set of alphabet magnets as well. Andrew also got a couple of new onesies.



Matt got a new RSL shirt. I got two RSL shirts (Henlie and I have one that matches :)) Matt also owes me a massage at our chiropractor's office. He was going to buy a gift card or pre-buy it, but he didn't get around to it. I still need to schedule it :)



After presents, it was time for breakfast! We had our traditional caramel cinnamon rolls along with some turkey bacon and scrambled eggs. The Biggs' side wasn't gathering until later, so we had some downtime. Daddy and Henlie put together her new bed.


Finally it was time to go to Grandma's. We had McKade this year. He's been doing percussion, so Matt got him some nice earplugs. We also got him an Amazon gift card so he can buy a kindle book or two. As we've been unpacking, we have accumulated a lot of bubble wrap. We brought some over for the others who were moving to use if they wanted, and McKade always would take some and pop it. So....since we got him such a little present anyway, we wrapped it in lots and lots of bubble wrap for funsies. 



I think the highlight gift for the kids was the Grandma's Playhouse. Grandma made all of the families with kids matching playhouses. (Parents got the bonus of a new folding table and chairs!) That and the fake snowballs were lots of fun for the girls to play with. We also called Jackie and Curtis in Korea on the computer. Christmas is the best :)



Eventually it was time to go home and head to bed. It sure was nice being able to sit up on a bed to read Henlie bedtime stories :) Cinco thought the new bed was rather nice, too :)

The Erdmann side doesn't get together for Christmas anymore. (It causes Grandma too much stress, and we are a very large family now, so it's hard lining up places and schedules.) This meant we had to make a separate trip to see Grandma and Grandpa Erdmann to give them their Christmas gift. Lucky for us, Grandma and Grandpa Wilson live practically around the corner now, so we headed to Mapleton early to see the Erdmanns for a bit before heading to the Wilsons.

We actually arrived at the Wilson party a little late. Typically that side of the family is notorious for late starts, but it seems they started fairly close to on time. I was impressed. We walked in in time for some dinner and to grab a couple pass-along gifts before opening time came.


After dinner and pass-alongs, we had our program. Henlie sang Jingle Bells (with some help from Mom). Then it was Christmas carols before my reading of the Luke 2 story and Silent Night. This year, instead of Grandma's big scriptures and a flashlight, I remembered I had technology and pulled it up on my phone. Backlighting for the win! ;)

Then it is time for presents! Andrew skipped his turn since he was napping (we go youngest to oldest). I went a little bit mama bear on everyone because there was lots of noise and talking. The whole point of turn-taking is so everyone can watch and see what everyone else got... besides, less noise makes it more enjoyable anyway ;)


After presents, it was time to gather our things, change into our Christmas jammies, and head home to bed :)

Christmas Eve morning, we met up with Matt's family and Brian and Melody's family at the zoo to see the animals with their Christmas enrichments. We started the morning off in the parking lot enjoying doughnuts, bagels, milk, and chocolate milk before heading into the zoo.

The rest of this post will pretty much be pictures unless I recall something I really want to share. Because, really, the zoo it just looking at all of the animals ;)




I love going to the zoo! Next it was home for a few hours before we headed to Mapleton for a family party!

December 23rd, our advent calendar sent us to Sip-N for some hot cocoa (and fries lol) and then down to the Payson temple to see the nativity. We didn't get out til late (for us, like 6:45pm or so) and the weather was bitter cold. We parked at the temple and quickly made our way to the nativity, snapped a few pictures, and headed home. I hope next year we can go earlier in the day because the nativity was backlit and hard to take pictures of. Also, I could go for it being warmer, too :)

Here are a few of the pictures we took :)

After playing at the Museum of Natural Curiosity, we headed over to Brian and Melody's new house for the Hadfield Christmas party. We ate yummy dinner and had a wonderful lesson by Grandpa Hadfield. There was music and chit-chatting and general hanging out with family fun times. Matt met up with us there after work. Henlie was gone most of the evening playing with the kids downstairs in Munchkin Land (the basement is a glorified craw space. Perfect for little bodies. Great for storage. Not so great for grown people to stand up in haha. I asked Mel for a tour since we weren't around for the Halloween party they hosted. Their new house is so fun :)