California with cousins

Part of our Christmas this year was a trip to California with some cousins.  It was such a fun trip.  We love spending time with the Larsen family.  Great memories!  We spent time at the beach, swimming at the hotel, playing games, shopping, enjoying the sunset at the ocean, going to the Newport temple grounds, eating yummy food and spend a morning at IKEA.  So much fun!!  Can't get much better than that!

It was so fun to enjoy the beach and sunshine.  So beautiful!

Newport Beach temple.

Sunset at the beach.

After we saw the sunset we stopped off at Trader Joe's.  Wish so bad we lived by one so I could take some of these lovelies home with me.  One of my absolute favorite flowers.

Christmas

I just love Christmas morning.  Oh, the excitement and fun!  We were very blessed with a wonderful morning filled with surprises and love.

I new thing we did this year was make homemade doughnuts Christmas eve morning for breakfast.  We had a few left over to share with Santa on Christmas eve.  Hay made sure there was a note attached.

 Hay with her new doll.

Christmas Eve

This is the one time each year that I get to set a place for Wyatt.  It always does my heart good to be able to do this once a year.  As we have our nice dinner that night we talk about our motto of "No Empty Chairs" and how Wyatt has filled his around our eternal table.  His place doesn't have a chair to remind us that he has filled his chair in heaven and we need to do all we can so that our chairs our filled there too.  I truly look forward to the day when we are all together around a table eating and laughing.  There is a void without Wyatt here on this earth that will never be filled until the next life. I sure look forward to that time when we are all together again.

We acted out the nativity this year.  Hay was especially excited to be Mary and hold the doll for baby Jesus. She got it all ready and picked out one of Wyatt's blankets to use. 

Wyatt always plays the part of the star.

After the nativity we always go to Wyatt's grave and sing silent night and leave candles on his grave.  The girls this year played their violins while we sang.  It was beautiful!

When we get home from Wyatt's grave there is always some presents waiting for us to open...PJ's!

We draw names every year and give a homemade gift to that person.  We open these gifts on Christmas eve. Such a fun tradition each year.

The boys in their matching PJ's.

Elf on a Shelf

We started a new tradition this year that ended up being so much fun.  We adopted an elf on the shelf.  He watched over the kids for the weeks prior to Christmas and reported to back to Santa each night if they were naughty or nice. He also did some pretty funny stuff around the house once he got back from the north pole.  Hay was especially excited each morning to see where the elf ended up.  This will be a fun new tradition that we will do for years to come. Here are a few pictures of what the elf was up to.

He was too warm in our house one night so he ended up in the freezer with a scarf around his neck. :)