we had a wonderful christmas and here are some pictures to prove it!
after our annual christmas eve brunch and dodgeball tournament in the morning at our ward building, and last minute errands in the afternoon, the smith's came over for our traditional spaghetti dinner.
(for those of you in florida, i've included this little video that has a peak of the Peczuh's and the Smith's, just for fun :)
we made dinner on christmas eve and the smiths brought dessert, and then we went to their home christmas day where they made dinner and we brought dessert (creme brûlée and chocolate salted caramel pie). it was a great set up!
the kids did a fun Night Before Christmas sock exchange and a "tree" decorating race, followed by the telling of the nativity by jenna. it was a great night!
the kids really didn't want to go to bed on christmas eve... they are getting old enough to realize that the sooner christmas morning comes, the sooner its over! jack was determined to catch santa this year and ask him to take him on a sleigh ride. so once the other kids went to bed, i asked jack to sneak out of bed and help me make some pie for our christmas dessert to pass some time. after that, and whole lot of convincing him that santa would just skip right over our house if jack was still up, he gave in and went to bed.
the kids favorite gifts this year:
owen- rocking horse (we are assuming)
charlie- marble run
ellie- american girl doll "Kit Kittridge" (2nd year asking for her)
jack- pet fish (which he named spike)
everyone enjoys christmas morning sticky buns, even the o man!
as if celebrating christmas and new years in one week isn't enough, we get to celebrate CHARLIE too!
he turned 5 on the 27th!
charlie knew exactly what he wanted for his birthday. he wanted a blaze monster machine cake that was super chocolatey, to go to the new trampoline park with brynn, and a minion fart gun.
so thats what he got.
since his birthday was on sunday, we went to the trampoline park on saturday and then did cake on sunday.
what an awesome kid charlie is. he makes everyone smile, even though he tends to be on the shy side if we aren't at home. at times he laughs so hard he cries and is always trying to make everyone else laugh too. he's starting to show a little interest in letters and numbers, but we still aren't positive if he's right or left handed because he very rarely picks up a pencil or marker or crayon, cause he just has no interest in writing or drawing, but pretty sure he's right handed. he can build a robot or a vehicle out of legos like no one else and really enjoys creating things... especially if he can create something in the dirt. our family loves this boy and he makes us whole.
charlie loves his minion fart gun that aunt rikki sent him so much, that i have had to make a new rule in the house: no fart gun after 6pm. when I'm trying to cook dinner, serve dinner, and get dinner cleaned up and getting the kids ready for scriptures and the whole bedtime routine... its just too much going on and the last thing i need is fart after fart after fart in the background. BUT! he can toot it all he wants the rest of the day :)
new years eve was so great and low key, like the rest of our holiday celebrations. we hung out at the smith's (of course) and played games, watched football, and ate and ate and ate some more. then we had a countdown at 10 because the parents were all too tired to stay up for the real thing! Ha!
we played googley eyes, pig pile, mexican train, checkers, the scrambled states of america and a couple other games. its so fun now that the kids are getting old enough to play real games on their own, without help from us, so we can all play together.
2015 was a great year for our little family. while getting ready to celebrate on new years eve, ellie started to cry and said "mama, i don't want it to be a new year cause this one was so good!". we feel so lucky to be blessed with good health, loving family & friends, and most importantly, our Savior Jesus Christ.
2016, we're ready for you!
