Christmas Sunday

I knew that it would be an exciting and crazy morning on Christmas and that there would be little time to get my kids ready for church. With that in mind, I decided to dress them up the week before and took some pictures. I think they look incredibly cute and Christmasy (is that a word?)...

Just the girls in front of the tree-Capri was more than willing to pose for picture after picture...
I made Roman jump in for just one more (and that's all he could handle!)...
Even without worrying about going all out with the girls hair like I did the week before, we were still late for church on Christmas! Ridiculous, I know. Capri couldn't wait to put her dress on again and wanted me to take yet another picture of her at church while we were waiting in the foyer. I think she looks like a party girl from the Nutcracker...

Side note about this dress: I was with my mom and mother-in-law at Trolley Square in January of 2010. We saw this dress marked down 50% and figured it would be the perfect dress for Capri the following Christmas. It was hung in plastic in Capri's closet all year and Capri was always asking when she could wear it. I had to keep telling her that it was for Christmas. Well, Christmas finally came and it was still too big! Fortunately, it fit just right this past Christmas, hence, Capri being more than excited to finally wear it!

Christmas Morning

Merry Christmas!

Roman and Capri were the first to wake up in the morning, surprise, surprise! They couldn't believe there were so many presents from Santa and they couldn't wait to start opening. Both had a couple of very specific gifts they wanted Santa to bring and when they saw he had delivered...

SO EXCITED!!! Capri had asked for Cinderella's carriage and the Rapunzel Fashion Set. Roman asked for the Buzz Lightyear gun (only found at Disneyland-thank goodness Santa found a ghetto/legal? website that sells Disneyland toys!) and the Cars 2 jet.Koko was thrilled to be apart of the action even though she didn't know what was going on!

After opening some presents at home, we all went over to my mom's around 8:30AM for more presents with the entire Curtis Clan! It was a bit chaotic but of course the kids were in heaven and it was so fun for all of us to give each other our gifts.

My brothers-aren't they the greatest?

Me and my darling sisters in our matching jammies from my mom (yes, I still love getting jammies!):

All the girls...and nevermind the fact that Karoline doesn't have a shirt on-I have no idea why!

And the boys! Notice the Nerf guns-we had 4 or 5 guns between all of the boys and they all had a great Nerf war that day!

Nothing better than cinnamon rolls for breakfast before we had to get ready for church. I am still thinking about them being that we only have them for Christmas. MMMMmmmm!

Christmas Eve

I love Christmas Eve. I love being with my family, seeing the excitement on my kid's faces, eating a delicious meal, and celebrating the true meaning of Christmas. It's the best day and definitely my favorite holiday!

Cheri and Cody were going to be spending the day with his family, but we made sure to snap some pictures of London and Karoline in their matching sweaters. Here they are holding hands-too cute!
Capri was matching as well, but had already taken off to Grandma's house (such a nice perk of living so close!) to play with her cousins. I tore her away for just a minute to take some pictures of her and Koko and it turned out full of Christmas love!

Tucker and I ready to start the party!

After dinner, we got the kids dressed up for our annual Nativity play. The kids were actually really eager to participate this year so we knew it was going to be good.

Here is Roman, our shepherd:

Capri as Mary with Baby Jesus:

And our little Koko as the star:

Kaleb as Joseph had to push Mary on the "donkey" (aka Princess ride-on toy covered in a sheet). It was funny to watch Kaleb's determination in getting Capri across the room. The sheet kept getting stuck underneath and so he was having to push with all his might!

We had plenty of hilarious moments such as Karoline not wanting to hold her star and so when I held it out for her she just swiped it out of her way, or when the Wise Men (Spencer and Eli) came in pretending one was riding the other like a donkey, or when Capri started crying when Karoline took Baby Jesus away, and lastly, when my dad couldn't find the right story in the scriptures about the coming of the Wise Men. It was all good and we were thoroughly entertained.

And let's not forget Roman using his shepherds crook as some kind of weapon...
These cousins have so much fun together. Spencer, Kaleb, and Eli are absolutely Roman and Capri's favorite people so it made the day that much more perfect to be together.When we were done laughing at our hysterical pageant, we got to work on our baking. Me and the kids whipped up a batch of oatmeal chocolate chip cookies (Santa's favorite) like we did last year-tradition!- and the kids couldn't wait to set them out on the special Santa plate. To wrap up the night, we let the kids open one present, their Christmas jammies. They were so excited to put them on and so was I-they were adorably cozy!

All snug in their Christmas jammies, we nestled them in their beds, with hopes there would be visions of sugar plums dancing in their heads...

The Grand and Temple Square

Yep! Still finishing up Christmas festivities. Deal with it. ;)

We decided to try something new this year and head over to the Grand Hotel for their Christmas scavenger hunt. You look through each window to find a star and it eventually leads you to this enormous gingerbread house... (and yes, it is made of real gingerbread, frosting and candy!)

The kids thought it was great and insisted we find each and every star. What was an even bigger hit, however, was the new toy store in the hotel. It was the cutest little shop and we all could have played for hours. Here is the Curtis gang in front of one of the many trees and a couple of the windows...

Once we were done at the hotel, we headed over to Temple Square for our annual trip to see the lights. They were incredible as always and my kids especially appreciated the big red tree. They also loved the reflecting pond with the many floating candles and nativity. I loved that the twins were old enough to understand what the nativity and the Christmas season was all about.

We were excited to meet up with Rob and Jesse and their boys. Roman and Capri cannot get enough of them! Here are the boys:
And the entire Curtis Clan (minus Richard who had left us for a date-and that's ok!):
We always wonder if getting the kids bundled up, driving through the traffic and dealing with the crowds is worth seeing the lights. When my kids talk about seeing the temple and lights days later, I know it was!

Roman is a Rockstar!

A Rockstar Swimmer that is! I can't believe how he has progressed in such a short time. In less than a year, Roman has gone from being afraid to float to swimming on his own. In his last class of the session in December, he completely shocked me when he was asked to race his teacher across the pool. He has been able to swim the length of the pool for some time now, but he stops to take breathing breaks on his back after 3 or 4 strokes. Lately, his teachers have him practicing breathing while swimming (turning your head, laying your head on your arm, and breathing while keeping your legs kicking), but they have always been holding him. Here is a video showing just that.

So to go from that to actually swimming was nothing short of amazing! His teacher asked Roman to race him to the stairs and Roman was all over it. He would swim for a few strokes, turn his head up out of the water to breathe, and then keep swimming. Keep in mind too that his teacher was swimming right along the side of him, not guiding him or acting available to help at all. Roman got to the stairs with the biggest grin on his face and told his teacher, "I beat you! You almost beat me, but I beat you!" I was dying. Such a stud. Sadly to say, I didn't get it on video. This tortures me except that I know he will do it again!
Here is another video of Roman jumping off the diving board- still his favorite thing!

Preschool Pajama Party!

I was so disappointed to find out that we were going to be out of town for Roman and Capri's Thanksgiving Program. It was so fun to watch last year and I knew that the twins would have enjoyed being apart of it even more now that they were a year later. Fortunately, their school decided to host another program for Christmas and I was beyond thrilled! They didn't have much time to practice their songs and yet they did such a great job! Both Roman and Capri had a part which they memorized the day they got it (I think they were pretty excited too!) and I was pleasantly surprised to see them get up in front of everyone to say it (something they wouldn't have done just a couple of months ago!).

Karoline getting ready for the show-she absolutely loved sitting in the chairs that were just her size!Capri is ready to go with her shakers-how cute is she with those pigtails?! Capri loves her Kindermusik time in school and was eager to show me what she had been learning.
Roman is definitely his father's son and turned his stick pony right into a gun-of course! He was so funny to watch throughout the program. At times he was in his own world and others he was acting like the class clown. I love that boy!
Hugs!
I love my preschool performers!
And here they are in action...