We celebrated our 4th Anniversary last year. We were able to go out on a date on the 21st which was nice. We tried a new Chinese restaurant in town, which ended up not being great but we had to try eventually. Then we went out to Cody Park and walked around the Winter Wonderland Display and drank hot chocolate. It even snowed on us just a little bit.
The Christmas Season was a flurry of activity for us last year but I somehow managed to get all our Christmas shopping done early on. That was nice since it left plenty of time for us to just enjoy the season. The kids loved the Christmas tree and all the decorations and were pretty good about not taking all the ornaments off the tree. Nolan also really enjoyed doing the advent calenders and would have done them all at once if we let him. He particularly liked the family tree advent and would repeat all the names. We also took the kids out to Cody Park and went on a wagon ride to look at the Winter Wonderland Display. Then we got hot chocolate and cookies.
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| Nolan and Shelby in their Christmas clothes |
This Christmas we decided to add a new tradition for our family, although it is not a new one for the Lowe family. Ryan's family didn't have a lot of traditions so we use a lot of Lowe traditions. This year we decided that we would put together all the fixings for a nice Christmas dinner and then anonymously leave it on someones porch. We asked the Bishop for the name of a family in the ward he thought could use it and then we had fun trying to sneak up to a trailer in a trailer park and get away clean. Fortunately I have a lot of practice doing such things so we succeeded. We also took part in a ward tradition they have here. They put up a Christmas tree with paper ornaments and on the back is written a child's gender, age, and what they need, i.e. a size 6 dress. We took 3 this year and got some nice things for some kids who needed them.
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Finally got them to smile
even if they weren't both looking at the camera |
With Christmas being on Sunday this year, we had to adjust the traditional Christmas morning schedule especially since my kids aren't yet old enough to get up at 3am to open presents. We decided that it just wasn't going to be plausible to open presents before Sacrament meeting at 10am, so we decided to do Christmas afterwards. It was pretty easy since the kids are still too young to know the difference as to whether Santa came in the middle of the night or the middle of the day.
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| Our Christmas Tree |
Right after church I took a couple of pictures of the kids (see above) since I knew as soon as they got into their presents and toys I wouldn't have another chance. Ryan then took the kids downstairs and distracted them for about 10 minutes while Santa delivered the presents.
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| Santa Presents |
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| Stocking hung by the staircase with care |
Both kids were able to figure out pretty quickly which presents under the tree were theirs and they liked what Santa left them. They were also pretty excited about what they found in their stockings.
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Shelby's 2nd baby
and one of my favorite pictures |
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| Nolan's new pal Woody |
We kept the present opening moving pretty quick so the kids wouldn't get too bored waiting so it didn't take long to get all the presents opened. Both kids got a pretty good haul.
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| Nolan's Haul |
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Shelby's Haul. She was happy with what she got
but she really didn't want her picture taken.
It was about nap time. |
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| Ryan's Haul |
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| My Haul |
As soon as the presents were opened we let the kids dig a little deeper into their stockings were they of course found a pretty good stash of candy which had to be eaten. Both kids just dug right in. I'm not sure they ate anything really healthy until supper at Pat and Bobbie's house, but hey, that's what Christmas is for right?!
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| Shelby stripped down for candy eating |
We went out to Pat and Bobbies for the rest of the day and for Christmas Supper.
This year we had a rather quite New Year. We were invited to a big party out at the Odle's home since our friends Adam and Brooke Odle were out here visiting their family for the holidays. We thought about going but decided we just didn't want to deal with all the noise and people this year so we stayed home and had chili and cinnamon roles and watched movies and ate crackers and cheese and drank more "beer" (soda) than we probably really should have. I think all in all we tend to prefer a quieter New Years celebration. It seems a lot less stressful than going out to parties and having to deal with grouchy, tired children.
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