Christmas Wrap Up (pun intended)

Here is our Christmas card this year. Thank you to my brother Peter for taking pictures of my girls and making/designing the card for me. http://www.looslitaken.com/

Kennedy and I made gingerbread cookies and decorated them together. After that they sat in the pan on our stove and not one of the suckers was eaten.

Christmas Eve festivities began with Mike telling us the Christmas story complete with flannel board and all. Sophie looks really interested eh? I swear that kids head is going to turn all the way around one of these days. She is either an owl or going poltergeist on us.
We then ate our Christmas dinner, roast with potatoes, onions and carrots. YUM!

For dessert Kennedy wanted a bowl of whipped cream, I figured it was Christmas Eve..what the heck right?

Then we set out the banana bread and carrots for Santa and the reindeer and a little milk too. We wrote him a note and Kennedy drew him some pictures.

"Santa here is some banana bread and carrots for the reindeer. Thank you for bringing me presents. Give Rudolph a big hug for me. Fly carefully. Kennedy and Sophie"On Christmas morning Kennedy slept in until 7:30, which we were happy about. We found the remainders of the carrots in our front yard and some reindeer poop in our snow. Santa left a letter for Kennedy and of course the loot.

I was most excited for her American Girl doll and all the clothes (some of which were wrapped and not put out by Santa) but Kennedy LOVED her horse. She carried that thing around with her all day. It even gave us a very interesting ballet performance later in the day. The doll is Sarah and the horse is Angel. Her doll changed outfits at least 10 times Christmas day. On the 26th the girls and I flew out to Utah, Mike had to stay behind and work. We had the scariest turbulence I have ever had and as I was clutching my two girls tightly and almost in tears Kennedy was laughing and saying over and over "It's like a roller coaster mom"
Kennedy and her cousin and favorite person in the world Sydney sledding.

Ken's first time sledding down the hill all by herself.

The Voorhies cousin book exchange. This is minus one family. The kids wore their jammies and exchanged books with one another. They then had hot chocolate and cookies and listened to Rachel read a few books to them. From left to right: Josh, Kyle, Gracie, Morgan, Shelton, Boston, Sierra, Savannah, Emma, Sophie and Kennedy.

Kennedy got a Fancy Nancy kit to help her "get fancy". Boy do her cousins know here well. She loved it! The glasses are part of the get fancy kit. Later on in the night she continuously fanned herself with the fancy fan it provided and blotted her lipstick and her pretend tears with the fancy hanky. Striped pj's compliments of Grandma Janice, thank so much for the wonderful gifts!
Girls sock exchange. I got together with my good friends and sisters in law to exchange socks with each other. We were suppose to give one funny sock and one nice pair. These awful cat socks were for Jolene. Niki got some hilarious metallic gold leggings that made us all lose it. It was topped off with our annual presentation given by Jolene for the fashion catalogue. Hard to explain and I can't even give it justice. It is the event that seriously makes me laugh harder than anything all year. She puts together a pretend catalogue of the must have fashions of the year from horrible things she gets in the mail like those horrible "Christmas sweaters" and such. The best part about it is Jolene,s commentary. We had so much fun laughing and eating at Wingers.

I also got to have breakfast with my two best friends Kristin and Melissa, just a day before Kris was induced. She ended up having a nine pound little chunk with a head full of black hair. I got to see her at the hospital just before I left for the airport, what a beautiful baby!

Kennedy and I celebrated the New Year at 9:00. We went outside and did sparklers and a few fireworks. My family poked their heads out every now and then to watch and make sure we weren't frozen. Ken and I just laughed and danced around.

We got a lot of fun and generous gifts from family and friends. Thank you so much for your thoughtful and kind gifts and for playing with and watching my kids while we were in town. They enjoyed playing hide and seek and dancing with Uncle Tyler, being tickled and harassed by the uncles and grandpas on both sides, watching shows on Uncle Blake's cool t.v., getting a tiara and magic wand from Leah to which Ken told me in the car "Mom Aunt Leah is pretty, and this tiara is just so beautiful." We had some great catch games going with Grandma and Grandpa Loosli and Kennedy enlightened us that soccer "isn't really my game" My family enjoyed Kennedy's impromptu songs in which she included lines such as "sharing the love of an appetite" and other gems that were equally as confusing. Kennedy ate her weight in peanut m&m's with Grandpa Terry and enjoyed Grandma Janice's carrots made just for her. Thanks to everyone, we had a great time visiting family and friends in Utah!

On our flight home I was so tired and ready to see Mike that I was grateful for a hilarious male flight attendant and his funny little comments he made over the speaker, for example:

"In case of changes in air pressure in the cabin of the plane the oxygen masks will drop from the ceiling. Parents please put your oxygen mask on first and then choose the child with the most potential and place their mask on next and work your way down."

"Please place your tray tables up and your chair in it's upright and most uncomfortable position"

"In case this becomes a Southwest Cruise your seat cushion does become a flotation device"

"Please no smoking on this flight. Just so you know it is a $2000 fine. If you have that kind of cash to throw around you should have flown Delta." (southwest flight)

"Please turn off all electronic devices and small children"

After a bumpy ride into Denver and a rocky and loud landing "Weeeeee're Here"

Thank you to the flight attendant for putting a smile on my face and to the little 8 year old girl at our gate that attempted to teach Kennedy addition, subtraction and multiplication. It was a good effort and it made me laugh.