Michaela was baptized!

Michaela was baptized by her dad yesterday! It was such an awesome day and she looked beautiful in her white dress.

Four other girls from our neighborhood/ward were baptized that day as well. Michaela and her friends all looked so beautiful in their white dresses.

The day was made extra special as we celebrated with family. Steven's parents flew in for the occassion and probably 25 of his aunts/uncles and cousins came. On my side, my mom and my brother and aunt and uncle were able to come. Thank you for those who came and showed support!

Christmas Eve

Our gingerbread house tradition... The kids love putting together the Costco kits each year. This year I was a little too skimpy on frosting so it didn't last very long before the roof fell off, but the kids had a blast anyway. Their 3 year old cousin Caden also helped and was quite good!


Steen lost interest in helping to build the house...but he was happy to help eat the candy.

We also have some traditions specifically for Christmas Eve Evening.

The first is the kids get to open one present on Christmas Eve which is pajamas.

The next tradition is that we go to my mom's house for Christmas Eve and have a big dinner and reinact the nativity. This year Tammy, Darwin, Caisa, Helen, Ruth and their families were all there as well as my aunt and uncle. We had a nice big clan and plenty of cousins for the nativity.

Michaela and her cousin Michael were Mary and Joseph.

Andrea was one of the wisemen or "wise women".

Steen and his 3 year old cousins were all shepherds.

Christmas

Christmas morning! Our kids slept in until around 8 or so. (We'd been up for awhile already and had breakfast already made.) The best Christmas present was they all slept in their own beds and not one of them crawled into our bed during the night.

My sister Ruth and her family came in from Texas and stayed with us for Christmas. We had to wake them up around 8:30am cause my kids were ready to open presents and they were still all sound asleep!

Christmas morning tradition: I make danish abelskievers and Steven makes cinnamon rolls. This is the Christmas cinnamon roll wreath he makes.

Steen LOVED his flying airplanes from Santa. Santa was smart enough to bring 2 planes so there wouldn't be fighting with little playmates. Unfortunately, Santa bought cheap batteries (the kind you might find at say the dollar store) and they didn't really last through Christmas morning. We went and bought some rechargeable. batteries the next day.

Andrea got a sleeping beauty vanity from Santa.
Steen was caught playing with it...should we be worried?

Michaela got a camera from Santa and some scrapbooking things from mom and dad. She has been taking pictures of everyone and having a blast.

Grandma and Grandpa West gave the kids a puppet show theater and Aunt Diane and Aunt Helen gave them a bunch of puppets. They had fun doing little shows.

Steen is has his dad's accounting genes and is well on his way to making millions. He immediately opened up shop and started selling his Christmas candy for $5 a pop!

We felt very blessed this Christmas to be with family and have too much yummy food (I think I gained 13 lbs. this month) as well as a warm home and great friends. We're still employed and we have 3 beautiful children with one on the way. Most importantly we have a Savior who loves each of us and we're grateful for his infinite gift that he gave us and we celebrate especially at Christmas!