We left our Christmas morning disaster at home when we headed to my sister's house for a late lunch/early dinner. All the food was delicious of course, but the most fun was swimming. Yes, swimming in December is ridiculous especially when it's only 50 degrees out, but my sister heated her pool for Christmas. It was so fun. We were in there for several hours and were very pruned when we finally braved the cold air and got out. 
I woke up this morning to the sound of Anna and Lainie counting their spoils. They each had their stocking items spread out before them as they were trying to wait ever so patiently for their dad to get home from working Dixie Ambulance Christmas Eve. They loved opening their gifts and were so pleased to see that Santa had eaten all the cookies and milk they had left out for him the night before.
Our little girls looked so nice in their Christmas Sunday outfits. It's always so fun to dress up nice for church. These pictures were taken right before bedtime. We had gone to a friends house earlier for dinner and Anna was begging us to go home because she knew she got to open one present on Christmas Eve. She was so excited taking off the wrapping paper and had the biggest grin on her face. That was until she saw it was pjs. The smile immediately left her face and she looked at me and said, "Can we open 2 presents?" Apparently new jammies aren't as fun as toys.
We made gingerbread houses tonight. The girls really enjoyed it. I'm actually surprised we got so much candy onto the houses...they were eating it like crazy! Ava was an onlooker of course, but she looked so cute in her Santa hat.
We woke up this morning to a paradise of white fluffy snow. So fun. The girls loved playing in it.
Please excuse the nudity of my child, however I could not resist posting this picture. This is the reason I pulled my CF card out of the camera today in the first place. Tonight we were getting into the bath and Lainie stripped her clothes off downstairs and then headed upstairs to the bath. I died laughing when I saw this little bit of toilet paper sticking out of her bum. I ran for my camera and started taking shots of her little bum all the way up the stairs and into the bathroom. Poor Lainie had no idea it was there, nor did she care. The toilet paper just had to have stuck the last time she wiped that cute little bum.
We were so lucky this year to get to see Santa 3 times. First at our community Christmas party, then at Tuacahn when we went to see the Living Nativity, and lastly at our Ward Christmas party. Anna was so funny. She asked Santa for something different everytime she saw him. (She wanted to make sure she covered everything.) Lainie never asked for anything, she was just elated to sit on his lap each time. I especially love this shot of her with Santa. Ava of course could care less but we needed a picture of her with Santa on her first Christmas for the scrapbook anyway.
When I put all the pictures from my camera onto the computer, this is what I found. My darling daughter Anna getting carried away with the camera, taking pictures of herself. She is trying so hard to get it just right. I can see the concentration on her face which is evident by her tongue sticking out. She gets that from her dad. Such a stinker.
Man, the more kids I have the less baths they get. It's becoming quite the project to get 3 girls all clean everyday. We are down to 3 washings a week. The girls definately love bathtime though. Here they are showing me their up-dos.
It's not too often that Paul and I have our picture taken together. Once you have kids, it's all about them. It's nice to get a shot of us together though...at least once a year.
It's that time of year again...time for more family pictures for our Christmas cards. Here are few we liked.
By far the girls favorite part of the day was getting to decorate the tree. Paul held the girls up to put ornaments high on the tree, but of course there were a bunch all on the bottom where they can reach. I'll adjust those later. They did a great job. I'm really pleased with our $5 tree.
I kind of felt like we were in that movie...National Lampoons Christmas Vacation, where they walked and walked and walked through the snow and then all of the sudden there was an opening and the perfect tree stood out before them with lights from the heavens shining upon it. Okay, so we didn't have any snow and we only walked a little bit, but this tree was in the middle of an open area just waiting for us to take it home. 
The girls enjoyed watching their shadows while daddy cut down the tree.
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