THE LUCKIEST: Merry Christmas and such!

Well now that it's almost March, I thought, what better time to blog about Christmas?! :) Most of these pictures speak for themselves but I'll give you short captions and maybe a few little anecdotes.

Melia loved decorating the tree.

We went up to Gorgoza Park for the Simmons Media Group Christmas Party. It was soooo fun going tubing again! I hope this will continue to be a tradition for years to come. Spencer and Melia both loved it. I even took Melia down the big hill once, although once we got to the top I found out you have to be 3 to go down. But there was no other way down, so she got to go just the once. :)

Melia was soo excited to see Santa at Gorgoza park but then was a little unsure once we got to the sitting-on-his-lap part. :)

When I was the only kid still living at my parents house, my mom got me a ridiculously large stocking. :) When I got married my parents gave Mike one too. But we've always celebrated with Spencer and didn't want to buy him such a large one, but also felt guilty having ones so much bigger than our only child, so we just got new ones. Now Melia and Evera have our old ones so these large ones were the only ones we had for ourselves. So we put them out this year. Melia LOVED getting IN them with Evera. :)

This picture is just random, but Melia is such a silly girl and this picture just displays it. She will do the most random things and then ask me to take pictures of it, and she gets so excited. Here she is sitting with bunny. Lol. She found my old caboodle and pretends it is her "couder" (computer/lap top). Here she is sitting on it.

Here's Evera sleeping while Mike does some work around the house. :) I love that my man is comfortable enough with his manhood to wear our baby in a Baby Bjorn. I (seriously) think it's sexy.

Here's one of Melia's cute hand-me-down Christmas dresses I couldn't resist taking a picture of.

Evera gets so wide-eyed when I take pictures it cracks me up. He already has big eyes it makes it even funnier. Love this kid!

Spit up!

When Chief hears that noise, he comes a runnin! Yum Yum!

EWW CHIEF!

Mike, Spencer, Melia, Evera and I went to see the lights at Temple Square with some of our best friends, Jon and Sally. Here are Melia and Sally looking at one of the big trees in the lobby of the Mariott downtown where we had dinner.

Melia loved looking at her reflection in the big ball.

Cute girls!

Melia was especially excited by the revolving doors! :) And Sally was sweet enough to humor Melia's enthusiasm (over and over)!

I love the reflection pool!

Gotta love Spencer's smile here!

Happy family!

On Christmas Eve each year we do the nativity at Mike's parents house. Melia got to be the angel this year. I thought it was pretty fitting!

Colton: Shepherd; Taylor: Joseph; Caylie: Mary; Evera: Baby Jesus; Brennan: Wise Man; Spencer: Shepherd; Melia: Angel; Lydia: Cow! :)

I love the way Melia and Evera are interacting in this picture. SOOO CUTE!

Cousins and best friends!

Definitely the cutest cow I've ever seen!

These girls have WAY TOO MUCH FUN together! They are BFFs!

This is what our Christmas morning looked like (or perhaps our Christmas 1AM...)

Complete with a bunch of Care Bears!

Melia LOVED the Care Bears!

But she was a little over-stimulated and every time I asked her to smile for the picture, this is the face I got! HAHA!

We had church at 9AM on Christmas morning, so we didn't open any gifts before church. It was really nice to go to church on Christmas and to really feel the spirit of Christ on his special day. Because of that, Santa didn't "set up" any of Melia's toys and wrapped them all instead. Some of these things, especially the giant Black and Decker workbench would've been more fun already set up. I don't think Melia fully grasped the concept that she was actually getting what was pictured on the outside of the box. Instead it was just a big box with a cool picture on it... Unfortunately we had to hurry to get Spencer home and go to my parents for the rest of the day that we didn't get to actually put any of her toys together until after Christmas.

Melia was the most excited about a little "watch" full of lip gloss that Santa put in her stocking. It was such a mess and so nasty (something Mrs. Claus would NEVER have picked out...) but she LOVED IT!

My favorite part of the gifting was watching Melia show EVERY one of her presents to Evera after opening it. It was adorable!

Melia also loved all the fancy rings she got in her stocking! :)

Evera got a bunch of fun stuff he won't be able to play with until he's older. I got the frame set for our living room that I've been really wanting, and Mike got tickets to Brian Regan Live, along with a Robocut (vacuum hair cutting device). Spencer got a digital camera and Super Mario Bros. Wii. (These are just the big things for the year).

Melia also loved this cute stroller, baby care set she got for Christmas. Notice she has one purse on each arm, (one she calls a purse and the other is a "diaper bag"). She has Care Bears in one purse, and her baby in the stroller. Such a little mommy!

She ALWAYS says she's "Going to the library." :)

My little Christmas Elf, all tuckered out!

Here's Spencer holding Evera at my nephew Jett's wedding shortly after Christmas. (More pictures of that event to come).

Melia is our little candy and chocolate fiend!

Mike and I went to an ugly sweater New Year's Eve party. We borrowed sweaters from my parents' closet. :) Mike's sweater is a U of U sweater (thus the "ugly"--he thought this was soo hilarious), and mine was just a Christmas sweater; but you really had to see it up close to fully appreciate it...

(Side Note: Mike looked super sexy with his scruff grown out, and I loved it. However he sortof looks like a creeper in these photos...bad camera angle or something...I look terrible too, but I had to sacrifice myself for the memory of the sweater...)

I won the contest...here is Mike braiding the hair of the praying girl on the back of the sweater...

Melia loved playing under the tree with Evera. I love the look of sheer joy and adoration on her face. I see this face quite frequently when she is with her brother.