Christmas 2015

Christmas Eve we spent the day building a snow cave in our backyard. It was awesome. The opening in the cave got huge and we were still able to sled off the top. We literally were in and out all day working on it, and prepping food and treats inside. We also had visits from Grandma and Grandpa Goulding and Chelsea and Zoey.


That evening we had our Christmas Eve party with the Meads. We did: appetizers, games, dinner (Paul's smoked brisket YUM) more games, decorating sugar cookies for Santa, and then doing the nativity play. It was a lot of fun.




After the party we got in our Christmas pajamas and opened our Christmas Eve gifts: yearbooks, socks and "Santa Spotter" binoculars. We went out to the driveway to sprinkle our reindeer food and the kids were positive they saw Rudolph's nose through their spotters. We took a quick drive to see if we could see anything more and then went home and set out Santa's cookies and milk and read "The Night Before Christmas"

Christmas Day was bliss. We had a beautiful white Christmas and on Christmas day we were literally snowed in at our house with fresh snow everywhere and had a great day just being home together.

Nolan came into our room at 6:55 AM and he was ready! We kept him in our room and held him off long enough for Caitlin to wake up and to make sure everything was in order.

Santa was good to us! Caitlin had asked Santa for a dollhouse when we saw him in the mall and she held true to that request so sure enough she got her dollhouse. She also got gymnastics practice mats and outfits, and play makeup and goodies. From family she received some new princess dresses and shopkins and play makeup. Nolan had three categories on his list: cars, legos, and superheroes. Anything in those categories. So that's what he got! A lego table, iron man suit and legos, all kinda of Lightning McQueens, incredible Hulk things (his favorite) and lots in between. Maverick got a train table and a little barn and some cars and an instrument set, and mostly just had fun checking out everyone else's stuff! My best gift from Santa I found under the tree Christmas morning and it was my Madsen bike! I had wanted one for a long time and given Paul endless hints and I'm so glad he took them! He chose the color and I couldn't have been happier with it! I also got spoiled rotten with lots of other gifts. Paul got some new hunting gear and my gift was a surprise entry to an archery course for him to do in the summer.

After seeing everything from Santa, we sorted gifts and took turns opening. Which quickly turned into the kids taking turns opening (adding mom and dad in the rotation took too long) so we let them open theirs and we played with everything and opened everything and then Paul and I finished up. We also stopped for breakfast too. We just took our time and had the loveliest morning. The rest of the day continued playing with toys and drinking lots of hot chocolate.