Christmas!

Making cinnamon rolls on Christmas Eve is one of our family traditions. I loved making them with my Dad when I was little and love getting to do it with my kids now :) We all had fun!

Another Christmas Eve tradition is to read the birth of Christ in Luke chapter 1.  Then the kids each get to use one of our Nativities to tell their own version and act it out with all the little figurines. It's fun to see the kids do it on their own. Casen set his nativity up with everyone as close as they could be to Jesus :)

                              Little miss trouble picking ornaments off the tree in my heels :)

Christmas morning! Ryan and I spend every Christmas Eve wrapping presents, we always wait til the last minute. But it is so fun to see fruits of our labors when the kids wake up :)

I always love Brinley's facial expressions :)

Marlee was pretty excited about her horse. It was fun having this be her first Christmas to really get excited. She even learned to say "Santa, ho, ho, ho!"

Casen was the most excited about the basketball hoop. I think cause he was surprised, even though he had been begging for the bike!

                                                              The Christmas line up!

       I ordered these monster towels for each of my little monsters! (Marlee wouldn't be in the pic)

Marlee was pretty excited about her princess shoes, they are still a little big though!

We got Ryan a fun remote control car. The kids had fun watching his race it and making it spin out.

Brinley drew this card for me for Christmas, I love all the pictures and notes she always makes for me. Such a sweet heart.

I love this painting by Walter Rane, it is entitled "Master the Tempest is Raging."  There is a giant canvas of this painting in the waiting area of the Las Vegas temple. I love to look at it when I am there. Ryan knows how much a love it and went through a lot of work to find this for me. We are going to wait to have the canvas framed until we move to Houston... I don't want it damaged in the move!
I love so many things about this picture. The title is "Master the Tempest is Raging" and it just makes me think about how so often the tempest is raging in each of our lives... and the question is what do we do when it is? In the painting half of the men are working with all there might to survive and keep the boat afloat, but the other half are turned to the Savoir and yearning for Him to save them. I think we so often fight to stay afloat on our own when we are "drowning", but all we need to do is turn to our Savoir and trust in Him. He will help us, comfort us, show us the way, and "calm the storm."

Casen made these cute little "service" vouchers for Ryan and I. So cute! Can't wait to redeem them :)

Christmas day we used the rest of the dough to make orange rolls! We had dinner with our friends Dawn and Ben Brown and their 3 cute girls Bailey, Meg, and Liberty... and there sweet new little boy Benson. We had a great Christmas dinner with them.

The kids had so much fun playing twister. Even Marlee got in on the action! :)