The Heath Holidays: Christmas Part 2

I will attempt to blog our 2012 Holidays. They were truly fabulous. Christmas was a total blast this year. I blogged about some of before but I will catch up on what we missed.

Okay, so I have to back track to one of my favorite parts of Christmas. That is Christmas decorations. I usually pull out the same stuff each year, and maybe add a couple new things each year. I have a mostly white and silver Christmas tree, so it is pretty easy to find things to go with it. Upstairs in the boys playroom we have a red and green tree, so have a few colorful decorations up there too.

About 4 years ago our Relief Society had a craft day, and I bought one of the kits but wasn't able to attend to make it. It is the cutest banner, and when I saw it in my craft pile, I knew I had to put it together. It matches the upstairs tree perfect, and it was easy and fast to put together. So satisfying!

This year I have a huge magnet board in my living room that I knew I would have to decorate. On pinterest there are so many adorable free printables. I printed out a bunch and just stuck them on the board. My favorite ones are the faux chalkboard printables. I just can't get enough of them.So easy and fun. I was not sure about the board being downstairs because it is so big, but it really is fun to switch up.

Lastly, the bane of my existence. My stupid living room shelves. I hate these shelves. The wall that they are on is too big, and I find them really uncomfortable to decorate. I have plans for that wall one day, but who know when I will ever get around to it. I needed something to go on my shelf, so I cut some vinyl and used an old kitchen cabinet door and made a "let it snow" sign.  It is nothing special, but it helped fill my dumb shelves-ha. I added some white glitter and some snowflake ornaments to it, to try to make it look better. Not sure if it was a success, but I am sure next year I will want something different, so I didn't want to spend to much time or money on it.

On our way up to Slave Lake we visited our Piper's grave. It was her birthday on the 22nd, and I am so glad that we stopped by. She will always be a big part of our Christmas Celebrations. This year I found this sweet angel ornament for our tree. I like to get her an ornament each year. I thought this one was so pretty.

Okay, so now onto the awesome celebration!
This year Shane and I went up to Slave Lake for Christmas. It was my parents first year back in their house. It was a very relaxed and quiet Christmas, my favorite kind. Rudi and her fiance Chad were in town as well as Lonnie and Leanne and their kids. Rory and Katie were in Guatemala and Belize and everyone else stayed home with their families.

Hudson LOVED playing with his "friends" aka his cousins. Although they are much older than him, they played with Hudson and Cooper so well, and were so kind to them. That was one of my favorite things about being home was seeing Hudson just love his cousins.
Christmas Eve was really fun. Everyone came over and we had our traditional Chinese gift exchange. As much as everyone hates admitting it, it is not as much fun when I get an early pick. I got the number one this year, so I was lucky to even get anything good-haha!
Hudson and Cooper got to open their Christmas Jammies on Christmas Eve and Hudson was literally screaming with joy(this kid LOVES pajamas:). The boys were so so cute matching. As is tradition in Slave Lake, a Santa is driven around behind a sled with lights on it, and my Dad spotted him just in time to show Hudson. Hudson was again, screaming with excitement. For the first time in his life he asked to go to bed, because we told Hudson that Santa came after he went to bed-haha. We got some cookies and Chocolate milk ready for Santa, then the boys went to sleep.

Santa's leftovers, and thank you note.

The Loot piles all ready to be devoured.

 It was pretty fun getting everything ready for the boys, but it was even better watching them open all of their gifts.  Hudson and Cooper do really make it rewarding to be parents. Hudson loves life so much and gets so excited about things. As he opened his gifts he would exclaim"This is exactly what I wanted!!" or "I am so excited." It was adorable. He loved opening and ripping the wrapping paper, and of course wanted to help his little brother open all of his gifts too. Christmas morning could not have been any more perfect!

Opening presents!

Chuck the Rolling Truck, that Hudson begged for and will probably never play with.

Beethoven? 

Cooper, showing off his cute new jammies and robe.

Hudson "lending an unneeded hand:)

After we opened our gifts, we headed over to the Love's for Big Bill's annual breakfast. There was an enormous wonderful spread! The best part of everything was visiting with all of the neighbors and friends and seeing the Love's in their new home.
Later on in the day we had a delicious Christmas Dinner. We really had a perfect Christmas! I am so thankful that it turned out so great and that it was worth all of the heard work!