Christmas 2014

It's the hap-happiest season of ALL...

 there's ornament gazing and cookies for glazing and sleeping neath trees all a glow.  There's Christmas clothes wearing and Christmas card bearing and Bethlehem long time ago.  It's the most wonderful time of the year.  with christmas eve jammies and kid-playing debbies and gifts bringing CHEER.  It's the most wonderful time of the year. 

Ornament gazing

 and cookies for glazing and sleeping neath trees all a glow

Christmas eve eve eve family sleepover - frosted cookies & watched Frosty the Snowman

Christmas clothes wearing

My kids rarely look assembled for church - let alone match.  It had to be documented. 

 

Window down on the way home from church

  and Christmas card bearing

Lucy was my buddy this year and decorated the fronts of the letters. And loved stamping and mailing them.  Our heat was out and one of my favorite moments was an entire evening doing holiday cards in front of the fire with my Lucyloo.

and Bethlehem a long time ago

A kate-planned ward activity (you know those are the best kind)  A Night in Bethlehem.  It was a very special, spiritual evening.

christmas eve jammies

my mom sent us pajamas for the kids

sisters wearing sisters

kid-playing debbie

So, one of the fun things this Christmas was we had Sister Long stay with us for a little while.  She was so fun with my kids.  And we got along great.  We had a few moments where we realized we were kindred spirits.  One of them was when we were talking about the weather and how it was supposed to be sunny that day but maybe it would be tomorrow and at the exact same moment both belted out Annie "the sun will come out tomorrow!"

playing puppets with Maryanne

gifts bringing CHEER 

 my favorite moments Christmas morning: 

-- Jingle Bell march 

(marching around following daddy to every corner of the house before opening presents)

-- Joey's excitement over his taco bell phone case.  :)

--joey showing sister long the ropes on her new tablet

--Luke bought me a ring from his school store with his own money.  So so sweet.

--watching Lucy on her new balance bike

--Maryanne totally Elsa-ed up

--Freddy in his one and only Christmas present.  A homemade hat from his dear cousins Meredith and Chloe.   --and Lucy with the new magna-tiles

 a little clip of christmas morning

20141225 083226 from katiehale on Vimeo.

 And keeping with tradition - we saw a movie Christmas night.  I feel like some of the best movies are our Christmas movies.  We saw Frozen last year and Les Miserables the year before that.  This year we saw ...

The movie and Christmas 2014 get two enthusiastic thumbs up.

 

[ insert on December 22, 2015.  The reason you don't see any Christmas Eve pictures is because I was too sick to go.  Joey took the kids to Kate's and they did the whole thing but I wasn't there.  Kate reminded me that I was sick last year and I hardly remember it.  I came here to see if I had documented it but didn't.  So - that was a thing. There you have it.]