Christmas

I've been super behind on updating this thing!

Christmas came! We went to lots of parties and ate too much and spent some great time with family and friends.

E met Santa! He didn't scream {I secretly hoped he would} but he didn't smile {we expected that}.

My family has a tradition of having Mele Kalikimaka - a Hawaiian Christmas dinner with Hawaiian haystacks and other great food about a week or two before Christmas, but we forgot to take pictures. I'm so bummed because we had so much fun. My grandparents had a party also, and my mom made sure to set up a fun photo booth so we all could get our pictures taken. It was so nice to see everyone and catch up. We don't get to see my side of the family very often, so when we do it's a special treat.

I couldn't fall asleep on Christmas Eve because I was too excited to see C and E open their gifts and stockings. Christmas is so much more fun with kids! We decided that, since E had just had a birthday, and would be getting gifts from grandparents, aunts/uncles, etc., we would keep this Christmas pretty simple for E. A stocking full of healthy snacks and a new toothbrush, a book, maybe a toy, and we were set. That was until I was doing some last-minute shopping on Christmas Eve and saw the sled. It was the perfect size for a little munchkin like E {complete with a little buckle to strap him in safely}, bright red, and on sale. And there was only one left. I didn't even think about it - it went straight in the basket. And it was totally worth it! E LOVES his sled and is constantly trying to get us to take him sledding. We will probably get a few years of fun out of it before we need to upgrade to a bigger sled. I'm so glad I found it!

I wish I could get the video to upload of E walking into the living room and seeing the presents under the tree. He fell over!

 

We took E sledding at C's parents' house after we had Christmas breakfast with them. It was super bright outside so E kept his face down most of the time. But when he looked up he always had a huge smile because he was having so much fun!

 

All in all it was a fabulous Christmas. The Sunday before Christmas, C and I got to give talks in church. Our topic was "how your testimony of Christ is strengthened at Christmastime". It was a great reminder to us that we need to keep Christ in Christmas, and focus more on Him and His life than on the festivities and gifts. We were so thankful to be able to think about those things {and especially grateful that the talks were only supposed to be 5 minutes long!}