End of December events

The past two years, Lillie has been mortified by Santa Claus and anyone with a white beard. This year was a little less dramatic. We saw Santa at our ward Christmas party and Lillie told him that she wanted "a horsey and a pink unicorn!" She still wouldn't get on his lap, but she at least talked to him and stood next to him.

This is Lillie showing Santa her little cow. She just had to show it to Santa.
Sam is so friendly and had no problem going to Santa. The whole time he was so fascinated with Santa's face it took a few takes to get him to stop looking at him long enough to take a picture. Last years Snowmagedden was very unusual for around here. This year we had a few inches and it will probably snow a few more times just as much the whole winter so we tried to make the most of it. Here is Lillie and Daddy with their little snowman.
Yes it's smile is made from licorice:DWe went to visit the National Christmas Tree and Santa's workshop in front of the White House this year. It was pretty cold! (as you can tell by how bundled up the kids are. Lillie still got too cold and wanted to leave after five minutes.)Santa had already left before we got there, so the kids missed out. As we were leaving though, we were crossing Constitution Avenue and saw Santa and Mrs. Claus driving by in their car and Santa honked his horn and waved at us! Lillie said hello and waved to them. The first thing she said though after her was gone was "Where's his sleigh?!" What a clever girl!

We went here just before picking Grandma Gardner up from the airport it was SO much fun to have her here for Christmas.

Here are a few pictures of our Christmas decorations.

Our full stockings...
The presents under the tree...I adopted this from my mom to string up the Christmas cards. I thought it was really fun to see all these wonderful cards across here. Thank you everyone who sent us one.
I found this fun toy Nativity online it is really cute and I love the way the figures look. Sorry i didn't get the best picture of it before I put it away. Lillie had so much fun playing with them all season. Christmas Eve Lillie opened her 3 pairs of PJ's that all said '3T'. She was super excited that they said 'three' so I thought I would mention it. This also shows Lillie's Christmas sweater. (Sam was already asleep by the time we got to this.)

We also had easy cheese, doughnuts, a roast beef dinner, told the Nativity story through song and using Lillie's Nativity and sang a few other songs.

Lillie made cookies with Grandma Gardner and we put them out for Santa with some milk and sent Lillie off to bed.

Christmas morning was so magical with Lillie.

We got Sammy some toys that play music because he loves to "dance" to any tune he hears, but mostly on Christmas day he had more fun with the rapping paper and boxes:)

One of Lillie's presents was a new big girl princess blanket. We had this unicorn hiding in her room and we told her, after she was done with her presents down stairs, that she had to bring it up to put it on her bed. I wish this showed a better picture of her face. She also got a bunch of other small horses and ponies and also some little people. She LOVES everything and was so exited with every present she opened.

The traditional Waffles and ice cream. This is a tradition from Mike's family and we have tried to have it every Christmas since we where married.

In other news...

Grandma Gardner took Lillie on a train ride at the mall because Lillie was begging. They had a great time.

We also catch Lillie holding Sammie's hand sometimes when we are in the car. Aren't they cute?