Michael Christmas Fun

We got together with Kevin's side of the family on the Sunday following Christmas at Sherri & Todd's house in Crescent Bar for a casual dinner.   The afternoon started with a Seahawks win, which was awesome for Mommy & Daddy and then ended with presents from Grandma and cousins which was an awesome treat for the girls. 

 

 

Grandma Carol spoiled both girls with American Girl for Clara and Bitty Baby for Janie.  They also scored some fun gifts from their cousins and had fun giving them the items that they picked out. 

 

After having so much fun playing games at Thanksgiving we played a new game called Adults vs. Kids!  The kids (which are pretty darn smart) really creamed us although there were lots of laughs in the process. 

Happy 50 years Auntie Dianne & Uncle Den!

 

A few days after Christmas our family got together to celebrate Auntie Dianne & Uncle Den's 50th Wedding Anniversary with a fun party in Auburn.  I just don't have the opportunity to spend as much time with my cousins and their children much, especially during the holidays, so the party was a fun way to get together and celebrate my awesome aunt & uncle.  I had fun working on some special touches for the party for them!

 

 

The Christmas Box

It's kind of a silly tradition, but a tradition is a tradition!  Here are Clara & Janie's 2013 Christmas Box Photos!

Christmas Magic {2013}

 

It is now officially our family tradition to be home on Christmas Eve so that we can have our own sweet family traditions and then the girls can wake up at home on Christmas morning.  Christmas fell midweek this year so it was kind of different to not be somewhere to celebrate on Christmas Eve but we made it special being together.  We had Chicken Divan for dinner, listened to Christmas tunes, let the girls open the gift from one another, listened to our special holiday books (Frosty read by Grandma Carol & Papa Murray and 'Twas the night before Christmas read by Papa Bob), and put out treats for Santa and the reindeer.  This year Clara chose to give her class gift to Daddy on Christmas Eve.  It was a sweet candy cane ornament made with her fingerprints. 

 

 

Sure enough... SANTA CAME!!!

 

The girls did a nice job sleeping in on Christmas morning.  They seemed pretty bewildered by the loot Santa left.  This year Clara asked Santa for "Frozen figurines and art supplies" while Janie wanted "small Frozen dolls and Small World singing dollies, France and Holland."  They both got what they asked for and then some! 

 

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Later on we headed to Chehalis for Christmas Day festivities with the Stevens side of the family.

Although Mom talked about going more casual we ended up being treated to her wonderful Prime Rib dinner and then had fun watching the kids go crazy unwrapping a crazy amount of new toys!  We try hard not to spoil these sweeties but the awesome reactions to the gifts and excitement of the day are really the best presents for the adults in the family.  WE ARE BLESSED!! 

Heesacker Gingerbread Party

 

Our sweet neighbors, the Heesackers have hosted this sweet Gingerbread making party for several years now.  It is such a treat for the kids, especially since Santa make an appearance,

sings carols with them, reads them a holiday story, and brings gifts.  It is so preciouses to see the neighborhood kids together singing with Santa after filling their bellies with sweets.   We are so lucky to have such a fun group of friends to raise kids with in Dahlia Park!

 

Tacky Holiday Fun!

 

This year Grandma & Grandpa Stevens took Janie & Clara for a weekend of fun while Kevin & I threw a holiday party for our friends and neighbors.  Last year we had an elegant event but this year we opted for something TACKY!  It ended up being so much fun and all our guests really got into the spirit! 

In Chehalis, Clara attended The Little Mermaid production at W.F.West with her cousins, G.G. and Grandma Jan.  Poor Janie got sick and had to stay home with Papa Mark. 

Christmas Cousins - PJ photos

This years Christmas PJ photos with the Stevens cousins started out like this!  Poor Brendan quickly ended up in tears.  By the way, you'd think that I would have learned my lesson after our family photos (previous post) but I kind of blame the need to do these on my mom who gets the matching jammies every year and adores these photos of her grandkids!

 

Cute shots of our (surprisingly) cooperative (on this day) sweethearts!

 

Love this series of the kids! 

And then, of course, we had to try this one! The kids loved doing it too!

Crazy Family Photo Shoot

This year the holiday season seemed to sneak up on me including having some holiday photos for a Christmas card.  My friend Cindy & I decided that we would get together on an afternoon and take shots of one another's family.  I had fun piecing together color coordinating outfits for our family and practically envisioned the adorable photo. Sounds good in theory but... we were a little nutty and chose a Friday night to do this, we let the kids (and their family dog) play while we got things set up, we had some cute expectations about fun holiday backdrops, had some candy bribes, and the biggest fault of the evening was expecting the kids to cooperate with all the distractions. 

We started off with Jensen and Davis and couldn't get smiles out of the baby. Davis admittedly did a great job looking at the camera and we ended up with a lot of great shots of him, even a few of him & the dog.  Then it was Clara & Janie's turn!  HA!

 

Most of the photos turned out about like these!

 I lucked out and got one cute one of each girl!

 

 

Even a cute one of Daddy & his girls...

 

Amidst of hundreds of closed eyes and super silly faces, I did capture this sweet one for which I am grateful, but the shot below (with my crazy hair) was the best out of some comically bad expressions photo after photo.  And I had to sacrifice the color of this photo where we are all looking forward because the exposure was a little off.  So much for matching outfits!

 

My take away...Change my expectations!!  And next year get a professional sitting scheduled early!

Holiday Gathering, Garden D'Lights & Snowflake Lane

 

The Michael side of the family got together for an holiday kick-off celebration this year.  We hosted a meal at our home and then took everyone to see some of the fun local holiday sites.



First stop was the Garden D'Lights exhibit at the Bellevue Botanical Garden.  Then we headed down to a crazy-packed Bell Square Mall to see the Snowflake Lane show.  The kids liked seeing all the characters and it was impressive to see how they have grown the show, but this year there was a crazy amount of people and the it took a little away from the charm. 

 

The nieces and even the nephews enjoyed the holiday fun!