Christmas Day 2007

I can't believe Christmas is over! This year has just flown by for us, so much has gone on it's hard to believe it's been a year......Anyway, we had a great Christmas. Braxton and Hailey slept in until about 8am, and then woke everyone up. They are pretty good about not going downstairs and seeing the presents....(as far as I know anyway) Their "big" gifts this year were bikes. They were both very excited about them. Hailey has been riding her's all over the house ever since she got it. Grandma, Grandpa and Aunt Kerri left around 11am Christmas day, so it was just us the rest of the day. We just layed around, ate, watched movies and played rockband. It was a great day! Merry Christmas everyone!

Braxton and Hailey with Grandma and Grandpa Ellsworth.

Christmas Eve

This year Mike's Dad, Stepmom and sister, Kerri came down to spend Christmas with us. It was alot of fun to have Grandma, Grandpa and Aunt Kerri here. Braxton and Hailey had a great time playing games, "sleeping over" in Aunt Kerri's room and reading books with Grandma Ellsworth. This year I had planned to do a short program with the kids for Christmas Eve, but since they had been up past midnight the previous 2 nights they were out of their minds tired when it came time to do the program. So instead we watched the movie Nativity. But before that we opened our new PJ's to sleep in.

Elf on the Shelf

I'm sure many of heard of the "phenomonon" called the Elf on the Shelf. It's a story about one of Santa's elves that comes to your home and watches you to make sure you are being nice and not naughty...he then goes to report to Santa about your behavior every night. The book comes with an actual elf that you put on your shelf, and every morning he's moved to a new spot. The catch is you can't touch him or he won't come back the next day. Braxton and Hailey have had so much fun trying to find the Elf. I have to admit that there are times the elf has "forgotten" to move and Braxton is very disappointed that he's in the same spot. Anyway, Mike has decided to get in on the fun and started to hide the elf. And this is what we found this morning...........

The fan is running and the elf is flying around. Mike is quite proud of himself.

Oh Christmas Tree.....

We did something tonight we haven't done for years! We bought a "real" tree. It's been 4 years, since the "incident", and we vowed to go fake ever since. (Mike trying to get the tree out of the house and making a huge, muddy, sappy mess on the carpet in the process....plus we were vaccuming up needles for months after that tree.) But since we have an extra family room in this house, it had to have a tree in it, so we thought we'd give a real one a try. We picked out the tree, bought ornaments and lights, then decorated the heck out of it. We went a little crazy on the lights, the color I mean. I opted for plain white, while Mike wanted color, so we compromised.

Hailey and I putting up decorations


Hailey loves to put up ornaments, you can really see it, but there were about 20 balls right in that spot.


Braxton was the official "hook putter oner" for the ornaments.

Hailey and the tree.....notice she is still in the same spot putting up ornaments.....

Three Little Indians......

When we go out to Utah, we are fortunate to have lots if family and friends to spend time with. (which at times makes our visit out there pretty hectic) But we enjoy every minute of it. Our good friends, Chris and Karen have a little girl, named McKenzie. Braxton and Hailey both love to go over to their house and play with her and all of her toys. Other than Hailey and Kenzie fighting over some of the toys, they usually have a pretty good time.