Grammy and Pops Christmas and Our Surprise Announcement!

I've been working on this post forever!!! Lets just say Landon and I are about to take our computer out and do to it what they did to the copy machine in Office Space!!!

I found this adorable Advent Santa calendar I thought would be fun for Brielle to do. He was $50 but after some negotiating because of a missing knob and some other discounts I got him for $7 BAM! I thought it would help her visually see how many days until Christmas there was and to incorporate the story of Jesus birth everyday until Christmas.  When we would put her to bed at night she would say " Maybe if I go to sleep 3 more times, then it will be CHRISTMAS!"


She enjoyed getting a little gift everyday (dinosaurs & Christmas erasers) and reading the bible verse.

Our first Christmas began at Aunt Carols house, Landon's Aunt on his dads side of the family.

His other Aunt Carol (yes he has two) and Jack were still in town to celebrate with us.

 

 

Looks like everyone was especially good this year!

Especially this little one!

 

Grammy had just had knee surgery a couple days before and we were very happy she was able to be with us and doing well!

 

Trent sitting Brielle on his knee and asking her what she wants for Christmas....or maybe what her life long goals are......Trent likes to make sure everyone has a plan haha!

Time to open presents!

Brielle asked for 3 things this year...a camera, a choo choo train and a bicycle.
Gigi and Gannpa got her a camera.

Baby Chloes first Christmas!

 

 

 Aunt Carol makes us chocolate covered pretzels every year normally shipped from Idaho but since she was here this year she handed them out personally to us...I had to hide mine quick from Emily in my purse.........you know you would have stole them! HA

 

 

My two sweeties, and a creeper in the background.

After we opened gifts it was game time.  Last year we played the "LEFT RIGHT" game.  Everyone gets a gift box and I read a story, every time I either said left or right they'd pass the box in that direction.  Got a little crazy, couple boxes got dropped but the surprise wasn't ruined.  Last year everyone got a pack of gum and one person won a gift card. 

We thought it would be the most fun way to announce our baby news at each family Christmas.
Since we did the game last year nobody suspected what was on the inside!!!
I always thought it would be super fun to surprise everyone with a pregnancy at Christmas time, and it just worked out that we did!!!

It took everyone FOREVER it felt like to read the note!!!  Emily was the first to realize what it said, she threw herself  back on the couch and screamed at the top of her lungs!!!  I think she even kick her legs up in the air ha. It was the BEST reaction!!  Everyone else looked at her wondering what she had won lol!
 I tried getting pictures but my camera wouldn't focus.  We got video though!

After our big surprise Emily and I had planned one more game.  Guess that Christmas song.  We would read a clue such as "The event that occurred at one minute after 11:59pm with visibility unlimited." The first to blurt the answer out "It came upon a midnight clear" won a prize.  We had to put a cap on the number of prizes people could win cause we had some smart cookies in that bunch aka GRAMMY!

 

Then it was on to battle of the sexes.  I'm no good at that game.  Trent was really into it.  Landon and I made fun of him, just a little bit behind his back. This is what he would do........He'd read the clue then announce "Ok, I'm gonna read it again."  and he'd read it again.  He did that every time it was his turn in a very leaderish take charge kind of voice ha!

 

While we played games the kids played in the rooms with toys and watched a movie.

I feel extremely blessed to have so much family to celebrate the Holidays with.