Christmas Morning

Look a new toothbrush and toothpaste in the stockings.

Looking at Santa's gifts that were left on the coach.
Good morning Sunshine.
My brother Mitch excited about his gift.
Eliana loved her gift, Candyland!
My late birthday present that my sister Kalli made for me, she didn't want to ship it so she wrapped it for Christmas. Thanks girlie! I love it!
My brother Parker opening a gift.
My dad trying on his new tie from Kalli from the Ukraine.
Mitch reading Eli her new book.

My sister Kiffyn showing off her gifts. New hat from Ukraine and a bathrobe. Love the hat!
David lying on the coach reading the back of one of his gifts, a DVD.
My sister Kalli with the family gift.
Eli opening her big foam alphabet puzzle.
It was a really good Christmas and visit to Las Vegas.

Christmas Eve Party at the Nelsons

My family always has Christmas Eve with our good friends the Nelsons. They took some family pictures for us, here are some:

Don't you just love Eliana's face. David told her to make a funny face. She looks like an old man.
Once again Eliana wanted to make a funny face. Here are the girls, obviously.
Now it is Kenzie's turn to make a funny face.
Here are all the kids. From left to right: Kenzie, David, Kimber with Eliana on shoulders, Mitch Smith, Parker Smith with Zach Nelson on shoulders, Kalli Smith with Kiffyn Smith on back, and Riley Nelson with Josh Nelson on back.

Gingerbread House

Snow!!!

While we were in Vegas visiting my family for Christmas we went to the mountains and played in the snow. Eliana got cold fast and she was tired so she didn't last long, but we (my mom and sisters and I) had fun sliding down the hill. My camera died so I only got the one picture.

Bling Bling!

Last night we had the Strasser family Christmas party. Unfortunately I forgot my camera , so I don't have any pictures of the party, but I took a picture of the girls in their new Christmas pjs from Strasser grandparents. I wish I had my camera last night because all of the "walking" granddaughters got the same pjs, how cute! Don't you just love Eliana's bed head.

I tried to get a picture of Eli in the new jewelry that Santa gave her last night at the Strasser family Christmas party. How gorgeous is she, even though her hair is actually still quite like her bed head hair?

The Hunter gets birds FINALLY!

David hasn't had the best duck hunting season this year. He isn't allowed to hunt on the river by his parent's this year so he has had to find new ways of duck hunting. He has taken his dad's boat and our boat to find some spots to hunt almost every Saturday for the past couple of months. He hasn't really gotten many birds this year, but Saturday he got 3. He said that he thinks he found the place to hunt. Here is a picture of Eliana next to the birds in our boat. I look lovely too. And you can see our messy purple garage.

The happy Hunter and his curious daughter.

Tagged-Thanks Jessica!

The rules: Each player list 6 facts/habits about themselves. At the end of the post the player then tags six more people.

I am going to just talk about my kids since really I am not very interesting.

Kenzie:

1. She loves to take things from her sister and run as fast as she can away from her laughing. Both of my kids love to tease. I think Kenzie learned it from Eliana. She also loves to play peekaboo especially when she wears a dress and will lift it up over her head and hide under it. Then she pulls it down and says "boo". It is quite hilarious.

2. She has a bad habit of nursing and when she wants to nurse she will come over to me and scream so I pick her up. Then she fights me to try to position herself. If I decide to put her done instead of nurse her she throws herself on the ground crying. If I decide I will nurse her then she nurses for a while and then will pull away and say "Mama". (Yes, I am really trying to wean her because of what she does.)

3. Kenzie has been grouchy lately because of the situation listed above as number 2 and because she got shots last week. Another thing that has really added to the grouchiness of the Kenzer is she is getting four of her top teeth in at once. Ouch! Well, I guess if she is going to be grouchy from one thing, she might as well have several reasons and just the grouchiness out of the way. I can't wait til she is done with that. Oh, and because she is getting four new teeth is another reason I am really trying to stop the habit of nursing.

Eliana:

4. She insists on shutting doors throughout the house and if you try to open it she will say "No, I was trying to sleep" or "The baby is sleeping". She usually puts a baby doll in the crib and shuts the room to her bedroom. The trick is she can't open that door from either side because of child locks on the doorknob. These child locks are there for a reason, because she will open the door when Kenzie is sleeping and go in and wake her up, or she will try to escape her room at night time to come to our bed. (don't worry we open it before we go to bed so she isn't locked in all night)

5. Her favorite place to play right now is in the car. I can't ever get her to come inside. She likes to pretend she is driving to "McDonald's to play" or "to town". Sometimes she is driving to a "friend's house". I almost always have to just bribe her with a piggyback ride to come inside. Piggyback's are one of her favorite things and we use them quite often to get her to go somewhere she doesn't want to go, like bed and inside from the car.

6. She is a good peacemaker to her dad and me. It is funny because when David or I start to complain or just start to talk about things we don't necessarily like she will say "Dad/Mom, you don't have to get mad". The funny thing is she will say that to a lot of things, where we weren't even mad, we were just talking about something. For example, yesterday we were driving around looking at Christmas lights and David and I were discussing which houses we didn't think looked that good, and from the back seat Eliana said "It's OK, you don't have to be mad". We weren't even close to mad. We just had to laugh.

Now I have to tag six people, but the only people I know that are bloggers that haven't been tagged yet are Aleta Uta' Atu, Heather Strasser, Vanessa Woffinden, Karee Pack, Meredith Coy and Grandma Carling. Since two of you are really new to this, don't worry about it if you don't want to. It was actually kind of fun though. Don't worry anybody, if you don't want to do this little game, I don't care. I wasn't going to but then just thought I would, but I would just write about my kids since I couldn't think of anything about myself.

Family Photos

We had our dear friend Lila, the photographer, take some family pictures for our Christmas card. It was hard to get everyone to look at the camera. Here are a couple of them:

Here is one of just Eliana on the stairs.
I love this angle shot. Too bad Kenzie isn't looking at the camera.
Here Eliana is looking at Kenzie.
And here Kenzie is looking at Eliana.
Eliana was doing the "nert" dance in this photo. It was hard to keep her still.

Dancin' Elf Family

Please visit this website to see our family dancin' as elves:
http://www.elfyourself.com/?id=1219274451

More of Kenzie's Party

Kenzie's Birthday

December 3rd was Kenzie's First Birthday. My, time has flown. It was just yesterday she was a newborn. Well, Kenzie has gained such a wonderful sense of humor. She cracks me up. We all just enjoy her so much! Here are lovely photos of her birthday party. (Thanks to Lila).

Oh, how exciting a shirt is to a little girl!
She wanted ice cream and cake from everyone instead of unwrapping her gifts. I guess it was a bad idea to have her open gifts while others ate.
I was trying to get her to rip the wrapping paper, but she didn't really get into it. Others had to help her open her gifts.
She was excited when she looked in the gift bag though, maybe all her gifts should have been in bags. Kenzie liked that since she could just reach in them and get the present.
The party!

The decorations. Of course I just have birthday signs along with Christmas decorations.
Kenzie loved the balloons.
Such a happy birthday girl!
The cake. Kenzie was quite confused when everyone sang to her. Below Eliana Eating is a clip of us singing to Kenzie. Wasn't that mean of David.

Ring around the Rosie