Obligatory Christmas Post

There's not much to blog about this Christmas. It was enjoyable. We spent a lot of time with family and a fair bit of time just watching the girls play together and enjoying ourselves. James had Thursday and Friday off, so we got an extended weekend together. Friday we spent the morning with friends from church, Jacob and Laura. Jacob and James went home teaching, so Laura and I hung out and let the girls play. Once the boys got back, our little family headed out to Taft for an early Christmas with family out there. The girls got spoiled, naturally, and James and I took advantage of them doting on the girls to go do some shopping kids-free.

Christmas morning was quite enjoyable. Santa filled stockings with gummi bear packets. Smart guy. The girls also got new monkey toothbrushes as well. From us, they got matching pajamas, two movies, a video game (that didn't work, so we returned it and will be getting the next Leap Frog movie instead) and the favorite present: a Diego trike. We ended up playing outside for awhile and playing with the new favorite toy.A few videos to enjoy of our time outside, including Cadence chattering at me. She's really begun to grasp simple sentences, but since her verb lexicon is so limited, she babbles a lot recently.

James got a pocketwatch, a scope for his .22 rifle, and a role-playing rulebook for the Wheel of Time world. I got a beautiful red wool coat that was a size too big Christmas morning, so it got traded in for a different wool coat and a necklace & earring set (as always when viewing pictures of my apartment, you must ignore all the little messes or you're not allowed to look at the picture anymore, lol):
We then headed out to my mom's house for dinner (which is always a good spread). There were a few more presents. James got a cool looking sword set, I got an all-time favorite DVD: "A League of Their Own", and the girls got a Dora DVD (which Cadence has already watched twice). We headed home for naptime, then back to mom's for pie and a phone call from Seth, who should be coming home from the Philipines in only 6 weeks! All of us are beyond excited to see him again. And whoever else might be showing up around then, too *wink wink nudge nudge, Erin* (I'm honestly not sure who I'm more excited to see, lol).

Sunday we went back to Monica Ward to hear James's friends farewell talk. The lucky guy's going to Fiji for two years. The girls wore matching outfits to church, I'll admit. I swore I'd avoid that at all costs, but the dresses Jen bought were just too pretty not to wear right away (no pictures, sorry). Next week our ward switches to the 9am meeting time, so no more church through lunch and naptime, at least for a year. In the Smith household we're having a post-holiday cleansing, as far as food goes. After all the rich foods from the holidays, we're having nothing but soups and stews for the rest of this week. Perfect excuse to try all sorts of new recipes! Yummy.