Christmas day

We had a wonderful Christmas. We feel so blessed to have each other, to have a home to live in and to enjoy all that we enjoy. Words can't describe how much we miss Wyatt and how difficult it can be not having him physically with us. His stocking remains hanging each Christmas and that is hard. We do look forward to the day when it will be filled with all the wonderful goodies Santa brings and will be placed next to his presents. We especially look forward to the day when we can watch him enjoy the magic of Christmas. Until then we are enjoying the moments we have together and are grateful for each and every one of them.

I always get a gift that is from Wyatt that we can enjoy as a family. This year it was Toy Story 3. We have laughed much from watching this movie together.

Waiting to come upstairs. This year they sent the dog up at 5am...needless to say it was an early morning for us.

Sooooo excited!!

I decided to set the table the night before for our Christmas morning breakfast. I used my 4th of July plates and thought they brought some fun color to the table. I love red, white and blue. I worried that my new blue walls might clash with my Christmas decorations this year but I LOVED them and thought they fit perfectly with everything.

Chrstmas eve

It's tradition now...we always set a place for Wyatt at our families Christmas eve dinner. Like I've said before it does my heart good to be able to set a place for him. We talk about "No Empty Chairs" and how Wyatt doesn't have a chair at our table but that he has already filled his chair in heaven and is waiting for us to do the same. That our goal is to have our Eternal table full with "No Empty Chairs." We had a wonderful little dinner as a family.

After dinner we acted out the nativity. I'm not sure why I didn't take any pictures other than Hay being Mary but we all had multiple parts. Wyatt had the part of the star. We used the star my mom sent us two years ago when they retired and dedicated the star part to Wyatt.

We then went to Wyatt's grave and put a little bear on it that my visiting teacher gave me. We always sing Silent night at his grave and light a candle. This year Em had learned how to play Silent Night on the violin so we had her do that while we sang. It was neat. Such a peaceful place. We stood for a while after thinking about our Savior and the hope he gives us so that we can have Wyatt again. I always shed some tears at this point. Tears of gratitude and tears of sorrow. Gratitude for my Savior and sorrow in missing my little boy. It's especially hard at Christmas time...I just miss him sooooo much! But I'm grateful for the hope that Jesus Christ gives me that I will have him again and I will get to see him open presents and watch as his eyes light up with joy.

We then went home and listened to a CD of prophets and apostles testifying of Christ. Hay then bore a sweet testimony and we talked about Christ a little more. After that we did our traditional ice cream activity with the nuts. Both D and I got a nut along with Ty. Something new we did this year for Christmas was, we drew names and we made a homemade gift for that person. We called it the"gifts from the heart." We decided that we would open those gifts on Christmas eve. After opening our "gifts from the heart" the kids opened their traditional PJ's and then they went to bed and had their "Christmas Eve Party" together.

It was a very sweet and enjoyable evening spent together as a family. I have no doubt Wyatt was with us watching as we cried, laughed and enjoyed each other. He is not gone..he is still a big part of our family. We love him!

The Nativity
Gifts from the heart

I had made a tutu for Hay's doll.

I love this picture of Hay. She was so excited to give the gift she had made for her Dad.

Hay gave her dad a Reese's peanut butter cup she got at school and saved for him along with some coupons of service.

D made some frames for Em to go in her room.
Em made a pillow case with pictures of Wyatt and Ty on it with the words.."Brothers Forever."
Ty put all of our home videos on DVD for me including all the video we have of Wyatt. I cried many times over this wonderful gift.

Hay made a bell necklace for Macie.

Wyatt's grave

The bear we took and put on his grave.

PJ's

Grandma's Christmas cactus

While we were up north for Christmas my mom showed me this. My grandma's Christmas cactus was starting to bloom. The first bloom to come out was the one by Wyatt's picture. This was a tender mercy for me to see. I don't feel like it was a coincidence. I feel like it was a love note from a couple of people I love and miss.

Doll

Last year my uncle called me and said he had a doll he wanted to give me. His wife, my aunt had passed away 5 months after Wyatt. She had bought this doll many years ago and he decided that she would want me to have it. It's an old doll..an antique. I found the perfect place for him during christmas...next to Wyatt's tree. This doll is about the same exact size as Wyatt was before he died. The first time I held him I cried. I love having something of my aunts in my house. I keep this doll in Wyatt's room. Such a sweet and thoughtful gift that I will always cherish.

Merry Christmas Emily

Merry Christmas to Emily. She has begged and begged for years for a dog so when we got Macie in August we told her that it was her birthday and Christmas presents. She has been ok with that. She LOVES her dog and has been really good to take care of her. She has shown us that she can be responsible and we are proud of her for that. Macie has become a part of the family. We have really enjoyed her. More than I ever thought we would. She is a very good dog which makes a big difference for me and it's hard not to fall in love with her sweet and sad puppy dog eyes.

Emily with her Christmas present.

Lost tooth/Perfume

Hay lost a tooth during Christmas break and enjoyed having the tooth fairy come.
We got some laughs over this one. Hayl got into my perfume and put on WAAAYYY too much. After doing so she kept wanting to sit on her dad's lap. Finally, he couldn't stand it anymore and went out to his shop and came back with this on. We laughed for a long time.

I love my husband's sense of humor. He can always make us laugh and we love that about him.

Christmas break

A few of our favorite games

So what did we do during Christmas break? We relaxed, played games, did a puzzle together, watched movies, slept in, read Christmas books, organized rooms, played the Wii, played with friends, took a short trip up north to see family after Christmas and just enjoyed doing whatever we wanted. It was simply perfect and I hated to see it end. I love having my kids home with me.

The puzzle we did for one of the days.

One of our traditions each year is to wrap up our Christmas books and open one each day and read it. The girls this year took on the task of wrapping up all the books. Which was greatly appreciated by me. They enjoyed opening them and seeing what book we would read that night under the Christmas tree. We didn't get through all the books this year nor did we get around to reading one every single night but at least we tried. I think that's a tradition my kids will always remember and have some fond memories of. At least that is what I hope.

Lights

I saw this idea on one of my friends blogs and decided to copy it. I put up white lights above our table. I added a few stars from Wyatt's tree and a bow on top of the chandelier to dress it up a bit. We have been able to enjoy some festive ambiance with our dinners each night. I love lights...especially white ones. Each night for dinner we would light some candles and enjoy the soft glow of all the christmas lights. I've decided to keep these lights up through the winter months just for fun.

Snow

I'm hoping to get all caught up with posts from Christmas this week. We will see. This is something I found and used for one of our bags before Christmas. It's snow...since we don't get it much here I thought it would be fun for the kids to play with some snow. It's actually really cool how it works. There is this powder stuff you add water to and it expands and becomes snow. It's even kind of cold to the touch. Anyway, it was a fun activity. The kids had a good time playing with it. The cool thing about this snow is that it will go back to the powder state so we can use it again next year.