The Day After...

The day after Christmas we decided to take advantage of one of our new gifts (thanks, Mom) and went to Sea World for the first time. Since we got year passes, we didn't have to worry about seeing everything all in one day, and planned to just spend a couple hours there. Well, we were impressed, to say the least. They were all decked out for Christmas, complete with live Carolers, dressed in Victorian clothing, Christmas music playing everywhere you went, and they even had a Christmas tree farm, which we didn't bother to enter. But that wasn't the cool part. We saw Dolphins up close, got to pet them, and we're splashed by them, we got to hold bat-stars, and we saw the famous Shamu show, which was pretty amazing. The kids really seemed to enjoy it - it was really interactive, and they liked that they could get up close with the animals and pet them. In two hours we felt like we saw and experienced a lot, but we didn't even cover half the park. It looks like we'll be having a lot of fun all year long!

Christmas Morning

This year Sam and I decided to leave the biggest gifts unwrapped. The main reason was that a lot of kids toys require a bit of assembly before they can be played with, and once they are assembled it is difficult to wrap them. It's also just fun to watch kids wake up and see new fun things to play with right away. And that's exactly what happened. Harrison received a bicycle and a helmet, and Noah got a Little People train set. They both loved playing with the train, and didn't even notice the pile of presents behind them for at least 10 minutes. But they eventually found everything, and had a good time playing with all their new presents on Christmas Day.

Twas the night before Christmas...

Christmas Eve was great this year. I much prefer to have Christmas eve on Sunday, than Christmas day - it was a great way to focus on the Savior. Harrison's Nursery class has been coming to Primary for a few weeks now, and so he was able to hear stories from many of the women in Christ's life told by the Young Women. He also was able to participate in singing lots of Christmas songs with all the other primary children, which he really enjoyed. We had gone signing to a retirement home earlier in the week, so ever since that he's been belting out Christmas songs all over the house. We did stick to some family traditions we've adopted - everyone opened 1 present on christmas eve, which was new PJ's. Harrison also prepared a plate of goodies for Santa, with a glass of milk, and carrots for the reindeer. We played out the nativity with our Little People nativity set, but it turned into mostly just playing... The kids were in bed early, and Sam and I were occupied late into the night with final preparations for the next day...

Strut

Noah is usually the one that likes to wear everything, but today, Harrison was insistent on wearing my pumps. And he had quite the little strut as he walked back and forth in our apartment in his Sunday best. Someday he'll regret this....

Deck the halls

The boys weren't the only ones that had fun with the Christmas lights this year.