Christmas with Friends

The day after Christmas, we headed to or ole neighborhood to spend the afternoon with our friends. Steph (whom I didn’t take a picture of) made a wonderful meal complete with brownies and ice cream. Adam’s friend Aje was also there but I didn’t get a picture of him either! Dave and Steph were so kind to get Emma a makeup case filled with makeup and nail polish! Emma loved it but we are thinking Grammy and Pop’s carpet will not! We had fun and got to spend some time with our sweet friend Ryan too. He is at the perfect age for snuggling!

Jarvis Family Christmas

Later Christmas Day we celebrated Christmas with my dad’s family at my aunt Shirley’s. Once again, we were overloaded with good food. My grandpa had a good time too! He is super excited that we live here now and has even found a home for us to buy! He told me that it is a great house and he can see their back yard from his back yard. I told him that would work because I could just send Emma over to visit him. He is 98 and didn’t even pause before saying his reply. He said “That would be fine, you could bring both of them over and I could babysit them both!” I am the mother and I can barely handle them both so I am not for sure how he thinks he can but he was pretty confident! So, I guess we have one more babysitter we can add to the list!

Christmas Morning

All season, our elf on the shelf Clyde, has been keeping an eye out at our house. He has been reporting back to Santa all the event s of the day. Clyde is a wonderful invention. He greatly assisted in potty training (we are getting close), helped with good sisterly play, and was wonderful to threaten with at naptime and bedtime. I personally am very sad that Clyde had to go away until next year. I didn’t even get a picture of him while he was here.  Anyway, Clyde must have reported to Santa that Emma was pretty good because he came through with a few gifts for the girls. Emma even got her pink clock (or a Santa version of it). Christmas morning Grammy and Pops made breakfast and my parents came down as well. We had everyone together to watch the girls play with their new gifts.

Christmas Eve

We went to my Aunt Caren’s for Christmas Eve to celebrate with my mom’s family. We always have lots of good food, a birthday cake for Jesus, chaotic present opening, and an intense game of a $5 gift exchange. Thankfully, it all ended peacefully this year (some have been known to cry, usually me, I am a little sensitive!) and I think everyone liked their gift! We took the girls home and put them to bed and then went to Christmas Eve service. It was a perfect night!

Christmas Eve Morning

We celebrated Christmas with my parents early Christmas Eve morning since they were heading to Texas to be with my sister right after Christmas. The girls got lots of cool gifts including an Art Easel for Emma, a music table for Audrey, and a Little Tykes Basketball goal for Adam!

Winter Wonderland

Another cool thing our town does is put on Winter Wonderland. They set up the entire City Hall with a train display, make it all “wintery” with snowmen, reindeer, and North Pole stuff, plus, Santa and Mrs. Claus are there for pictures. It is a free event that is sponsored by local businesses. We have been every year since Emma has been born. We were all taking bets on how fast Audrey would cry (she is a little timid) but as soon as I sat him down she was grinning from ear to ear! She loved the guy! When it was Emma’s turn she told him that she wanted a “pink clock” (we have no idea why she wanted this but this is what she told everyone she wanted the entire Christmas season, she never wavered). When he asked her what else she wanted she looked around and said “Um, a reindeer!” Santa told her he might need those reindeer but he would see what he could do!

I think Mrs. Claus was a little overwhelmed when she saw us come up through the line (since it looked like we had a large group) but I told her not to worry, we really only had two kids, one preteen, and seven adults! It is nice to have grandparents around to share in the magic!


Schweiss Family Christmas

The weekend before Christmas we headed to Aunt Brenda’s to celebrate Christmas with Pop’s family. It was extra special this year because Adam’s grandma Marie was turning 90! She was in high demand for pictures that day. She is such a sweet lady and we are so happy she has been blessed with such good health.

December Photos

Just a few photos from the month of December. Catherine's Christmas program and Emma hanging out with Erin.

Early Christmas Gifts

Growing up, my sister and I always got to open up an “early” Christmas gift. I decided to do this for Emma and Audrey since one of their gifts was something to use during the season. It was fun that night but the next day not so good. Apparently they thought it was ok to open presents whenever they wanted because I came back from fixing lunch to find them tearing in to a present. I asked what was going on and Emma said “Audrey wanted to open a present and I gave in!” That little Audrey can be so convincing!

Nutcracker

Almost every year, the area’s Young People Performing Arts puts on a production of the Nutcracker. This year my cousin Catherine danced in it. Emma had a blast and made it through the entire show! On the way in, she kept yelling “I love Nutcrackers!” and in the middle of the show she yelled out “Oh, I love this!” She even got to go see Catherine onstage at the end! We were very proud of Catherine and can’t wait to see what roll she plays next year!

Christmas Card Pictures

Here are the photos we had taken for our Christmas card. As a disclaimer, it was the morning after Thanksgiving, we were in the middle of moving, all four of us had a nasty cold, and I had been out doing some Black Friday early morning shopping. It is not the best but it worked. We did get a few cute ones of the girls.

Christmas Parade

We love being back in Farmington and we have tried to take advantage of all the neat things it offers. It seems like there is always something free going on that kids like. They had a Christmas parade and not wanting to miss out, we bundled Emma up (we all still had terrible colds, was this a bad idea?) and sat in some frigid weather to watch the Christmas parade downtown. It was a neat parade that was short and sweet and then we headed home to warm up!