Christmas Count Down!

I love Christmas time, especially with kids.  The whole month is full of fun traditions, anticipation and magic. 

On the first day of December our elf Elmer showed up with a gift.

He brought the kids Christmas pjs to enjoy all month.

Our next tradition was to get a real tree to let the kids decorate down in the basement with all their homemade and our more traditional ornaments. The kiddos loved picking out a tree and also posing in front of it.

This year Elmer would do something fun and hide each night and then we would try to copy his activity the next day.  So one night Elmer decorated our tree (with toilet paper and candy canes) and then next day we decorated it for real.

Elmer made a count down to Christmas chain

and so did we.

One of our favorites was when we woke up to find Elmer having a snowball fight with marshmallows with our musical reindeer.  That evening we had a marshmallow fight in the basement that was a lot of fun.

Another one of our favorite December traditions is that each night the kids get to pick out a wrapped Christmas book from under the tree to open and then read together.

They loved this nightly tradition! And I caught Jax picking his nose in this pic! :)

Other fun traditions included opening a day of Christmas from my mom that usually had a little gift or activity for the kids to do that day. 

And it wouldn't be Christmas without some Christmas cookies and baking.

It was fun to have traditions and activities to get us in the holiday spirit each day and made the season more memorable!

Grandma & Grandpa Nebeker

We were so lucky to have Grandma and Grandpa Nebeker come to visit us for Christmas this year.  This is the second time this year they've braved the 25 hour drive to see us and the second time they've driven out so we wouldn't have to spend Christmas without any family.

The kids were thrilled to have them with us and loved all the extra attention.  They were also super excited that they brought their dog, Powder (or as we call her Powder Puff) along as well.

The kids had never seen their grandpa with any facial hair and now Kenna refers to him as the grandpa with the beard. Keilie also loved the beard and learned quickly how much fun it was to pull it.

While they were in town we took them to a few of our favorite spots, like the Henry Ford Museum.  At this time they had a special Avatar exhibit that was pretty cool.  Jaxson liked all the huge robot like stuff.

And Kenna loved pretending to be an Avatar in the few of the displays.

I loved the special Christmas decorations the museum had up.  The Henry Ford always does things so nice, and I love this huge Christmas tree.

Kenna's face cracks me up in this one.

Lynn found someone who would cuddle and star gaze with her without falling asleep.

They had a huge Lego display that was very impressive and Jaxson loved it.  

And how would have gotten this great picture without some grandparent help?  They're always such great sports to put up with our weirdness.  We sure love them!

Merry Christmas!

Christmas Morning! My friend told me about one of their family's traditions and I decided to add it to ours.  

It's called The First Gift of Christmas.  Before we start the Christmas morning madness Santa leaves us a present that has to do with Christ.  After we open the gift we talked about Christ and the true meaning of Christmas and then had a family prayer. It was such a great way to start our morning!

This year Santa gave us a Precious Moments Nativity scene, which reminds me of home because my mom has the full Precious Moments Nativity in her home.

Keith's family has a tradition to take a picture of the kids on the stairs before they go see the Christmas tree and what Santa brought. Kennadie had to make sure she brought and posed with her new shoes and purse.  I love that Jaxson has a real smile in this picture, they're hard to capture with the camera.

This is how most of this smiles look.  Even though it's a forced smile, he LOVED the Lego table and new Legos Santa brought.

Our four kiddos with their stockings before they dumped them out.

The best part of Christmas morning is seeing the kids faces light up.  Here's a few of those fun faces I captured this Christmas morning.

Our family gift from the Adairs, I wish Keilie hadn't needed a nap so we could have gotten all of us in one picture on Christmas.

We had a wonderful Christmas filled with fun new stuff, lots of good food and best of all staying in our jammies all day and hanging out with my favorite people in the world.  I LOVE Christmas and I'm so thankful to know that I have a Savior Jesus Christ who makes all things possible.  We are so blessed!

T'was the Night Before Christmas

I LOVE Christmas Eve, I might even like it more than Christmas day.  We had a really good and busy Christmas Eve this year. Keith and I used most of the day getting ready for that evening while Grandma and Grandpa took the kids out to a movie.  Then the Poston's came over for an delicious Christmas Eve dinner, which looked suspiciously like Thanksgiving.   

After dinner it was PJ time. Our kids all got matching Christmas PJs that I attempted to make (and I won't make that mistake again) and a book.

Keith also got some fun jammies.  He finally got his onesie jammies that he's been wanting.

The whole gang with new jammies and Keith graced us with 'The Smolder' look.

Then we had to uphold the Shinney tradition of taking a million and one Christmas Eve pictures.

My Christmas cuties!

Oh my, this picture explains so much!

Keith is such a good sport and dad.

Next tradition is the sibling gift exchange.  Jaxson gave Keilie her own 'Little Fella', (yes we have 3 Little Fellas) Keilie gave Kennadie some dress up shoes and a purse and Kenna gave Jax some new swim toys.

This girl is cutest little Santa baby ever!

Once reindeer food was on the lawn, and Santa's cookies out by the tree the kiddos finally went to bed.  And once they were in bed it was time for Santa to finish up his projects.  Santa made Jaxson this Lego table out of a tree lawned shelf.

And Kennadie got this puppet theater.

Yep, it's going to be a good Christmas! Having kids make holidays so much fun! I can't wait to see there faces!

Dear Santa

I'm part of a support group at the hospital called the SRAA.  This year we did a little fundraiser where kids could come make ornaments and get pictures with Santa. 

The first visit to Santa was a success with all three kids that I thought it would be even better when we went to see Santa at The Henry Ford museum.  I knew this Santa would be cuter and I wanted to get some fun pics, unfortunately Keilie had other plans.

She must developed a strong stranger danger sense in a little over a week, because as soon as we put her on his lap she screamed.  She was not having it.

So, I had to settle with some of just the older kids.  He was such a cute Santa and made sure to really talk to each kid.

Kennadie especially loved Santa this year and didn't want to get off his lap.  I love this time of year and the magic that comes with it!