Christmas 2013

We started getting in the Christmas mood by decorating early and having our family pictures taken by our fireplace.

We built candy houses.

We ate yummy pancakes at our ward's Hawaiian Christmas breakfast.  I'd never had macadamia nuts on pancakes before.  They were so good!

 Brett didn't care much for Santa this year, no matter which Santa it was.

 We went and saw the trains.

 See Brett's fingers?  Yes, he was very sticky after that candy cane.

We stopped by some fun Christmas lights.

Yes, we have an elf.  Fortunately he's not too mischievous.  This is about as crazy as he got.  He flew into our window one morning!  Sometimes I have a hard time adding Christmas traditions, just because I like to keep things simple and meaningful, but this elf has been soooo fun for our boys to find every morning for the past 2 years at Christmas time.

 We went to see the pretty lights on Christmas Mountain (in our neighborhood).

 My annual sewing project.  I spent too much time figuring out this little apron, but it was well worth it for my sweet little niece.

 Christmas Eve.

We got a train this year and put it around the tree in our living room.  Grant was the master engineer and both boys were so good about keeping it on the track.  Good thing too, because I couldn't easily get down to fix it if it got knocked off.

 The nativity all set up at Grandma & Grandpa Jackson's house.  Notice the fish bowl and random toys that were invited.

 Brett playing cars with Great Grandpa.

 The best shot I got of all the kids.

 Waiting for our kids to fall asleep.

 Santa came!

Nothing will stop Brett from sucking that thumb!

 Working on a paper airplane from Grant's airplane book.

 Watching that airplane fly.

 Brett loving his new train track.

 Eating up one of his new books.  He just loves learning about things!

After checking out our Santa gifts, we had a yummy waffle breakfast together with freshly squeezed orange juice.  It was a fun year with the ages of our boys!