Christmas Traditions

Gingerbread houses with Uncle Jonathan!  

Emma was super independent and hers turned out so cute!  And Whitney's masterpiece:

Owen and Jonathan with their creations:

Maris in her beanie-24-7 phase with her cute house, and Katelyn's skyscraper- look a the tiny doors at the bottom for scale:

Maris had a lot of fun crafting with this plastic and yarn over Christmas break, she made a bunch of cute stuff like this star.

Sugar cookie and gingerbread cookie-making extravaganza!

We had a super fun Christmas Eve- early dinner with the Murrays, where we had to split up so the 4 older kids sat with Kurtis and Lauren!  Eric and Emma and I sat with his parents, and it was hilarious to listen to the conversations going on at the other table haha. And then Jenae and Connor came over for a couple of hours!  They were spending Christmas with his parents in Eagle Mountain. We packed in a couple major traditions with them-- wrapping paper roll fight!

Eric is wearing the baby yoda Christmas sweater Jonathan got him :)

And acting out the Nativity!  Here's Angel Emma appearing to Joseph and then Mary.

Mary and Joseph on their journey- and Joseph got to ride the donkey??

Baby Jesus was born!

The shepherds Whitney and Maris with their sheep, and being surprised by the angel:

Choirs of angels singing!

The shepherds visit the manger.

Maris shepherd leans down to kiss the Christ Child.

The 3 wise men on their long journey, (Owen, Jenae and Connor) singing and dancing as they went. Connor's headwrap was truly spectacular and took quite a bit of effort to make haha

presenting their gifts- I can't even remember what they were laughing about!

Cast photo:

And lastly, the tree with shiny gifts underneath.  It always looks magical to me on Christmas Eve!