the 12 days of Christmas

Since Freeland took his 3rd step of boards half way through December we held off all our holiday celebrating until he finished. It kind of helped since I didnt get my act together and plan these out like I wanted to (something about a newborn who doesnt sleep well or let you put her down?!)

So cramming in all the fun things we wanted to do made for some busy fun days the rest of the month.

To save you from 800 post with each individual thing Im putting all the pictures in one. (youre welcome)

Get ready for picture overload.

We basically did something to celebrate every day the 12 days leading up to Christmas. Even though at times it was exhausting it was also seriously a lot of fun to have something to look forward to as a family every single night.

Sometimes it was something little and sometimes it was something big..

like meeting the big man himself:


I would have paid you $100 that every child would have been screaming in this picture. I seriously cannot believe River & Wylder both cooperated. I think River thought he would get the choo choo he asked for right when he got off his lap .. so thats the reason he cooperated so well! ;)

One night we unwrapped the manger for the kids to play with the rest of the time:







the boys (on their own) asked if they could get down and show it to chapel. Adorable

One day we spent the day wrapping gifts and getting ready:

those are all Freeland's hot wheels from when he was little.


We even found Chapel her own Trail buster

Finally doing something with our beautiful Christmas cards:



Wylder consistently walks by and admires all the people and tells them hello! ;)

Lots of movie nights in our PJ's:










Decorating Christmas cookies:









Wylder was devastated when he finished his and there werent anymore:









Christmas movie & smores by the fire:









My Aunt sent us an Elf of the Shelf so we also did that. River named him "dinkin" as in "dinkin flicka" ha no idea where he got it from?!







Gingerbread houses:










Wylder chose to just eat his.. which wasnt a problem except I hot glued the graham crackers together so he was eating hot glue! lovely.





Lots of Christmas baking:





River got to go deliver all the treats to our neighbors:



Freeland teaching him how to hand it to the neighbor and say "Merry Christmas"



Building a snowman for the boys to wake up to:


such a good daddy:









driving to look at christmas lights in our jammies:

Chapel screamed the entire time. Not the christmas carols I had in mind.





Reading the story of Jesus birth:







And we let the boys open a gift on Christmas Eve. They had waited so patiently for days and were thrilled we finally let them open one. It was adorable seeing River pick out Wylders to open.




These gifts were actually from our neighbor.. and the book she picked out for River is AWESOME!

Its a "tool box" book to learn all the tools and how to use them.





Then Freeland & I finished up Christmas Eve with Enchiladas and Tamales. Yummy.



This was the first year we were more intintional with planning things and talking to the kids about Jesus and why we were doing all the things we were doing. And I finally bought a tree after christmas to do a "jesse tree" with the boys next year.

Im so thankful somehow Freelands schedule allowed for us to get so much time together at the end of December. It was so fun creating all these memories and seeing River get so excited about everything. It took him until after Christmas to actually call Santa .. santa .. instead of a snowman? His favorite was definitely the Christmas lights & the day I had Dinkin using the big boy potty when River woke up.. he thought it was hilarious. Wylder I think just enjoyed everything... well he especially enjoyed the food part!  Chapel enjoyed anything that involved her being held. ha ;)