Christmas Recap

I thought I'd better recap the events of December before the month is over. We had a wonderful Christmas at home with the five of us. I admit that I am not a huge fan of Christmas in general (I'm such a Scrooge! I know.) There were lots of things that I really loved about it this year, though. I loved being together with family. I loved seeing the kids get so excited and feeling the magic of it all. I loved reconnecting with old friends and family. I was especially touched that Presley was very into giving this year. She broke into tears when I came to her classroom the last week of school with gifts for her teachers. She was so sad that she didn't get to help me put the gifts together! That day she came home and we scrambled together all the Christmas candy we could find and made little treat bags for each and every one of her class mates. Later she went around the house, "shopping" for items she thought different friends would like. Then she proceeded to wrap these items. Seeing her really interested in the giving end of Christmas this year really made the season for me. Enough about that, here's the recap:

 Christmas Eve-

• We had a huge breakfast with fruit, bacon, eggs, toast with homemade jam, and pancakes.
• We made Christmas cookies for Santa
• We went to Chuck E. Cheese for a friend's birthday! (you could tell the workers wanted to get out of there. One was so rude to Noah, he said he never wants to go back there again!)
• We made a fire in the fireplace, watched A Christmas Carol with Jim Carey, and drank egg nog.
• 

The kids opened one gift on Christmas Eve with brand new (badly needed) pjs. I was surprised at how excited they were about them. Yay!

Christmas!:

The kids each got a hand made pillow case with their name on it from grandma Berry. They have been so excited for bed time since they got them. Each pillow case fits what each kid is into right now. So sweet.

More presents! Josh's family tradition is to get all the presents out from under the tree and sort them out. Then open one by one starting with the youngest to the oldest.

Josh and his books! You can see my loot pile in the background. Lots of running gear! I was so excited.

Charlie got one of those barking dogs. The next best thing to a real dog right? You can see our gingerbread house and all the cookies that Santa ate. We had to keep the gingerbread house for Santa to see. 

It barely survived in time. Note all the missing candy pieces that "elves" had been snacking on through the week.

The kids got a few things that required assembly. This marble toy took Josh four hours to build! Labor of love. :) It was an awesome finished product with flashing lights and rocket sounds. Thanks grandpa and grandma Plant!

The 27th (my BIRTHDAY!):

We woke up to tons of snow!

Everyone seemed to stay inside. Josh didn't go in to work so we had another fun family day.

We went out for burritos and rented "Knight and Day" which had some fun Boston footage. We especially liked the Bunker Hill Bridge freeway scene. Cameron Diaz's fading Boston accent was pretty funny.

Since then we've been keeping busy with play dates and new stuff.

Pres and her Play Doh cake maker.

 Charlie watching his new Toy Story 3 for the 100th time! (he calls it the "Roar Movie" because he loves the dinosaur in it)

 Trains and hot cocoa. Check out my card wall this year. I stand there and re read and admire all the pictures. I love Christmas cards!!!

 My friend, Lindsey came over and showed Presley how to knit. Pres was catching on, but we'll need lots of practice. Nyshma, Noah and Philip are in the background.

 We've had lots of pizza. It's a favorite around here. Both Presley and I got the stomach bug right before Christmas. Pres threw up on the car ride home from the Nutcracker! Just a few days ago we started to get our appetites back. So pizza was a must. 

So that is Chrstmas 2010 in a nutshell. We hope you all have a happy new year! 

BYU-Idaho "Somebody to Love" LipDub (Justin Bieber, Glee, Queen)

If you haven't seen this yet, check it out. My nephew, Blaine directed it. So cool.

Philadelphia part 3. The End.

 Josh presented his research Monday morning. He left when most of us were still asleep. Not even nervous. The whole conference was attended by over 12,000 scientists. Josh's presentations went well. Even though his work was competing with the work of a veteran scientist. Talk about nerve-racking!

When that was over, Josh joined us for day two at the Franklin Center. If you jump on this floor you build up the electricity to make the tesla coil electrify. We were really into it!

The Airplane Room:

Kid's Room:

 The Free Library

Then off the Macy's for the Christmas Light Show. Really getting us into the Christmas spirit!

 We later found Ben Franklin's grave near the US Mint. No cameras allowed in there. 

The Plants take on Philadelphia!

More Christmas fun at the Dickens Village:

Noah, the goof ball:

 After a day of fun, we'd usually hit the hotel pool, then watch movies in the room till we conked out! This is how the kiddos slept:

What a fun trip. We have so many happy memories of Philadelphia. 

Merry, Merry Christmas!

Philadelphia part 2

Continuing on...

Right behind the Liberty Bell was Independence Hall where the Declaration of Independence was signed. You practically have to be strip searched to get in there! TK was asking how the heck to get a stroller to the entrance. :)

Here is The Spot. Signed here. I loved that the colors of the walls are the actual original colors. Good choice, huh?

The next day we headed over in the opposite direction to the Franklin Institute science museum. I was the hero of the day when I realized we could all get in for free with our Boston Science museum pass! Woot woot. On the way there we wound up in Logan Circle and read this plaque:

It was extra special because of the name, William Penn. My dad had discovered that William Penn was one of our ancestors. Noah thought that was pretty cool. Then we read on that the grounds were meant for executions! Nice. We had to get a friendly photo of the kids there: 

(Josh would probably like me to put out the disclaimer: Pres picked out her whole outfit for the day! Stripes+polkie dots, she calls them)

Here's what you see when you enter the Franklin Institute.

Here is everyone waiting for the liquid air show to begin. We spent the whole day there and only covered half of the the things to do. It was nice that Josh could duck out for a few hours and hang with us. We all watched Tangled in 3D there. Cute movie.

More fun with gramma!

 

Up next: Philadelphia part 3. I bet you're on the edge of your seat! Stay tuned for the Macy's Christmas Light Show and down town fun.