Christmas

We absolutely loved our Christmas this year. It was so relaxing and low key. Last year,  Christmas  was kind of hectic. We spent the week before  Christmas  hurriedly packing for China, while cramming in  Christmas  shopping. On  Christmas  Day, we spent half of it with my family and half of it with the McArthurs. And while I would never have wanted to not see either side of our families, it felt like we were everywhere & no where all at the same time.
This year, Mom McArthur decided she'd rather have her whole family together than have  Christmas  on the 25th. So, we held the McArthur  Christmas  Day on  Christmas  Eve. The boys got up early to go play racquetball. When they got home, the rest of us woke up, made our way downstairs and opened presents. My favorite part (besides being with the McArthurs, of course)? The fact that they let us sleep in! We didn't open presents until around noon! Woohoo! After eating our brains out, watching Christmas movies, and hanging out for the day, we made our way to my Nana and Papa's house for my family's  Christmas  Eve open house party. We did the typical: eat, tease one another, and play. Oh, and we conned the little kids into giving us back massages and playing with my hair.

As per tradition, the adults stayed up late to wrap all the presents.

 Lindsay and I stayed up until an insane hour wrapping presents, but it was so good to have that time to talk to her. I really felt like I bonded with her.

Jesse somehow got the BEST JOB EVER. While I was up until 5am wrapping, he was "putting the little girls (aka Mallory and Peyton) to sleep". I'm not jealous at all. Whom am I kidding? I'm insanely jealous.

Snuggle Bunnies

Isn't this the most precious thing you've seen?

When I attempted to get him up to help me wrap presents, this is what I got:

Santa Came!

Christmas morning came quickly. At 7am, we awoke to many little bodies jumping on us telling us to wake up so that we could all take the annual "cousins on the stairs" picture and go downstairs to open up the presents.

Annual picture of all the cousins on the stairs Christmas morning.

Papa being silly. I love this man!

We both got new snow gear. We're so excited to use it!

Jesse got books on CD for his long, rush-hour, traffic-ridden commute.  

After Jesse opened his iPhone, we never got to interact with him again:

After presents, we lounged around for a while.

Then we showered and headed to church at Nana & Papa's ward. 

My Kenzie K and me after Church

It was a GREAT Christmas and we are so grateful to be blessed to have two wonderful, loving families to spend it with. Their love makes Christmas the magical holiday that it is.