The Day

What day? Why, it's Christmas Day! 

The morning:

We opened our gifts to each other in the wee morning in the glow of the tree.

The Jackson clan:

Gift exchange and yummy breakfast :)

The Chitty clan:

 

And my favorite:

Steven MADE me a table! (With Chip's help) I was so surprised. I've wanted a half moon table for our family room, I had no idea he'd make one for me. Yeah, he's pretty much the best ever :D you can't quite see the full awesomeness because of my big head, but it's pretty rad! 

We are so blessed to be able to spend time with so much family this time of year.  I love the focus on kindness and giving and of course, our Savior. We received a lot of great and sweet things, but we also had a lot of wonderful opportunities to give and serve and I am very grateful for it all. 

The Eve in photos

Christmas Eve breakfast while watching Christmas movies!

            Gift exchange with Cicily.

Christmas Eve with the Powells. Unfortunately most of my phone pictures turned out blurry. 

Korver took all the centerpiece lights and hid under the table.

     Opening sibling gifts, and papa too.

           Kids gifts and grandma.

          Simon loved his new couch. 

             A few of my favorites :)

Our Christmas Eve was relaxing and perfect. We missed the Jesse Powell family, but got to face time them. Otherwise, all was well :) 

The Eve of Christmas Eve

Or 'Christmas Adam' as we called it when we were kids. 

Last minute shopping, not too stressful for me because the main stuff was done and I was just looking for a few finishing touches. My brother Wesley went with me, and also kindly bought me lunch :) Steven, who doesn't enjoy shopping as much, or crowds and traffic (but who does really?), had less of a fun time on his excursions but still got done what he needed to :) We met up midday, shopped with Katie and Packer, then headed downtown to meet these guys:

I love downtown at Christmas! I wish the snow wasn't melting so fast, it's so pretty. We were there for about four hours just walking and enjoying everything. We got dinner and hot chocolate too :D  Danny met up with us and we watched the claymation Rudolph at his place. Such a good movie :) 

Now it's Christmas Eve! And I'm loving lounging and watching Christmas movies with Steven before we give in to actually getting ready for the day. 

Decking Halls

Thanks!

Thanksgiving fort for watching the parade and dog show, walking a 5k, mischievous nieces, turkey comas, the only shot of everyone(ish), Laura's cupcakes, thanksgiving movie-frozen. So much to be grateful for. 

Happy Thanksgiving!!!!

Steven,

Thanks for always making everything better, especially when treats are included :) I love you more than sea salt caramel truffle, hot chocolate milk, and Cinnabon combined! 

Halloween and Dia Dos Muertos!

              Our Halloween rocked 

To kick it off, Beth put on a fun Halloween party for the kids. Simon took a liking to Mckell and kept trying to fuse faces with her. Cloie told Grammy that she shouldn't do her face like that again, she should be a princess instead.

Our ward does an awesome Halloween party/spook alley. This incredibly talented woman turned our young women's room into a mad scientists lab.

On Halloween we went trick-or-treating with these clowns: 

This is the best I got of all the adult costumes.

Detective from Fringe, sorry don't remember the name...

                   Cutest lion ever

                   Spider cookies!

Packer kept mashing his face in the ball.

The day after Halloween we had a great party at the Powell's (I wish I'd got more pictures, Sarah's family of batman characters was awesome). It worked out well because that day was The Day of The Dead which...

...is what we based our costumes on :) our makeup got better each time we did it, the first time was rushed but the last time, I think we nailed it. Taking off was interesting (see picture of Steven above:)

I love this time of year and I love this holiday!

That's a new one...

"Are you preparing for Halloween, or did you just have a baby or something?"

A student asked, because my hair looks like this:

Said student is a little delayed...but still...

That's what I get for trying to change things up a little. . .   :)

I have postpartum hair