Christmas 2010

We had a great Christmas this year! It's amazing what not loosing your job 3 days before Christmas does for the mood! We stuck around Denver and spent time with my family and extended family. Some of my cousins came back from Utah. We were really excited to see them.

Christmas Eve we spent making eclairs, peanut butter cookies and bread! It was so nice. Although Tanner, of course, would only be happy if he was held and with no spare limbs to hold him, I got my sling out... it was short lived though because it cut off circulation to his feet and pulled some sort of muscle in my neck and shoulder that gave me a SPLITTING headache... but we got some cute pictures out of it!

{Cute little papoose boy!}

{trying to still cook with my little boy...}

{Brooke and Tanner at Grandma GG's house for Christmas Eve dinner}

{Tanners Christmas outfit, his reindeer hat and all! }

{My cousin Kendyle and I. We were assigned to plan the Christmas Eve program! We rocked}

{ELF (aka:my Dad), Haley and Brooke listening to the Christmas stories}

{My cousin McKae gave Brookie that tu-tu for the cousin Christmas exchange... it's so cute on here too!}

{My cousin present from Paige! I LOVE these colors too...}

{Brooke and Tanner's matching Christmas jammies that Grandma and Grandpa Sugar (in Africa) gave them for Christmas! SO CUTE! Tanner was completely on melt-down mode by this point}

{Mommy and the kiddies! I love how Brooke is holding Tanner's hand in this. It just shows how much she loves and adores him!}

{Putting out some homemade PB cookies for Santa and some carrots for the reindeer!}

Christmas morning we all woke up to the phone ringing and my Mom coming downstairs to wake me up to tell me my brother, Aaron, was calling from his mission. It was like 7:00am. Turned out, Salt Lake had said not only could missionaries (at least state side ones) call home as many times as they wanted all day Christmas, they could talk for as long they wanted (so long as it didn't interfere with any appointments or other duties they had that day), they could do webcam if their families had one and they could find one to use at a members home, they could call ANY family members (grandparents, aunts, uncles, etc) AND they could call from their missionary cell phones. He was just calling on his way to an appointment to say Good Morning and Merry Christmas! It turned out we got to talk to him 5 times that day and one of them was ON SKYPE webcam for 2 1/2 hours! It was so wonderful to see how happy he is!

{My brother, Aaron (Elder Willardsen) on webcam on Christmas Day! He is serving in Carlsbad, CA and will be home THIS OCTOBER!!! CRAZY!}

After the 1st phone call Christmas morning Dan and I heard Brooke wake up in her room and we both ran up there and burst through the door saying MERRY CHRISTMAS!!! She was so caught off guard by BOTH of us coming in her room and EXCITED. Normally, someone else lets her out of her room (she has a cover on her handle so she cant get out) and comes down to see us in the basement. We told her Santa had come and brought presents. She just looked at us like "huh?! I thought you guys were just telling a story! He actually came to my house?!" So we took her over to the landing to look over the edge and she saw everything. THEN, she saw her stocking and Princess Barbies... oh man! She freaked and about flew OUT OF MY ARMS. We have a tradition to gather in my parents room and say a family prayer. Brooke was so excited, she could BARELY sit through the prayer. There was no waiting and lining up to go down the stairs that morning... I held her hand and we practically skipped the stairs 2 at a time. Her stocking was laying up against the box of Barbies. She just pushed it aside and grabbed the box. It was so funny and so cute!

{Brookie's big ticket present from Santa! PRINCESS GARBIE'S! She was sooo excited!}

{Of course, they needed to be opened IMMEDIATELY before she would even FATHOM opening the rest of her presents.}

{After a while, we finally convinced her to go through the rest of her stocking}

{Tanner's stocking was as big as he was!}

{Santa knows Tanner so well! He gave him gas drops!}

{The other thing Brooke asked Santa for... candy necklaces... since it was Christmas we let her have one before we even ate Breakfast}

{Dan got some very fun presents from Santa, including a 10" miter saw AND tickets to see his favorite play, Les Miserables at the Denver Theater in Sept 2011!}

{One of my big ticket items from Dan was the 007 GoldenEye game for the Wii... that game was my fav on N64 and I was SOOO excited to get it}

{Brooke got a Princess "pop-up" tent from Grandma and Grandpa, that she now calls her "Clubhouse".}

{Tanner got a Bumbo seat, which he ABSOLUTELY LOVES! It makes Mommy happy too so she doesn't have to hold Tanner nearly as much for him to stay happy now!}

{Grandma and Grandpa also got Brookie a baby doll set. It came with the doll, stroller, crib, swing/high chair and several accessories. She LOVED IT!}

{Tanner giving Mommy Christmas kisses!}

{Grandma and Grandpa GG came over later that evening and brought "round 2"! One of Brooke's favorite things was a Princess dress-up and "glass slippers".}

{The other favorite was her "Princess lips"! There were 5 little chapsticks with a different princess on each of them. They even came in a little carrying case, that locks (thankfully!). It was the perfect little present for our aspiring beauty queen (or princess, I should say!)}

We had WONDERFUL Christmas. We were TOTALLY spoiled and had a wonderful day of yummy food and treats, relaxing and napping! I hope you all had a great Christmas too!