christmas 2011

MERRY CHRISTMAS! 

things have sure been busy this year.  we had a great christmas and we hope that yours has been as well. 

12/3: here is quincey with santa. as you can see, she did really well. and so did santa. we are at the town's christmas carnival. it was at one of the tribes bldg's in town. i can't remember the name.... anyway, they had a bunch of games for the kids to play. santa made a visit. they also had a raffle for different ages groups. i put in sterling's name and he won a game. below is as close as sterling got to santa. even at the ward christmas party, he just got close enough to get a treat bag. we didn't force him to sit on his lap. both of these pictures were taken by our neighbor. 

as you can see my hair is was really long. i cut it the next weekend (12/10). quincey and i went to missoula for some shopping and i got it cut then. i love it. it even looks good if all i do i blow dry it.


a few days before christmas we got this fluffy white stuff. amazingly enough we haven't had much snow. once it snowed then it really felt like christmas. even though i had grown up with non-white christmas', i have gotten used to having snow at this time of they year.

both pictures are taken from inside the house.

now, on to the tree. oh the tree. oh how i have a love/hate relationship with you. when miss Q and i went shopping, sterling and andrew stayed home. they got some things done around the house and one thing they did was go and get a tree. with two weeks until christmas, we figured it better get it up and decorated.

doesn't it look great???? 

this is what our tree looked like after being pulled over 6 times. yes, i said SIX. all by one person. i got to the point were i would just put it back up and maybe put the decorations back on.  (if you would like you can give us your opinion on the blue and red curtains. we were trying to decide which color we liked better)

we redecorated our tree on christmas eve. here it is christmas morning. 

christmas eve: the leishman's invited us over to their house again. we went over there for christmas dinner and visiting. in attendance- aaron and marci leishman. us. chad and heidi leishman. there were 8 kids and 8 adults total. we tried to act out the nativity. it was a little hard with some many little kids who just want to open gifts. then the leishman kids open gifts from their cousins. sterling opened his pjs. it was a fun evening and i don't think we stayed as long as we did last year. 

christmas day: since i was sunday, we had to get up and get ready for church. sterling cuddled in bed with us and we waited for dad to get done with his morning chores (feeding pigs and cats). then we came out to the living room. we opened out stockings, had breakfast and then went to church. 

quincey and her christmas pjs. 

sterling (in his christmas pjs) and i with some things from his stocking. lighting mcqueen car and mater pez dispenser. he also got a manga doodle for church. 

lucky for us all church was only one hour. we got home and had a light lunch. we sat a enjoyed this because we knew that next year....there is no way we would be able to do this. below is quincey waiting for someone it get it out of her car seat. 

gifts: sterling opened some cars 2 themed underwear. 

after looking at them all, he had to put some on:

(that's mcmissle and mater)

andrew's zipper sweater from mandi

sterling looking at a book that i got him and quincey.

andrew in his hat from his parents.

our littlest gift.

here is quincey's wall art. my mom had this done for her. it's printed on canvas and i did have to trim it down a little to get it to fit in the frame. 

the gifts sat under the tree through breakfast and lunch. sterling enjoyed opening his gifts, but he would play or look at each one after he opened it. that gave us time to open ours and quincey's. we had an enjoyable day.

andrew has to work today. so he hasn't really had a christmas vacation. his coworkers beat him to asking for time off. of course stuart should have been closed today anyway (in my opinion). i mean christmas was just yesterday!