Christmas Dinner

The Wrestling MatchI had to take a picture of Frank and Russell wrestling. I was really surprised to see 2 grown men wrestling in my living room! I think Russell won.
My kids love playing with ropes and their friends did too.

Here are the Boyetts. Spencer decided John was his new best friend. We had 22 people over for Christmas dinner - 12 of them were kids. It was a lot of fun and Kayla said, "this was the best Christmas ever."

Christmas Morning

Spencer with his new vacuum that actually works!

Brayden with his newest weapon - a baseball bat and tee.

Kayla displaying her polly pocket cars and ponies from her stocking. She also got a pink barbie convertible from Santa.

Opening Christmas presents is fun! Cleaning up the mess isn't so fun.

Christmas Eve Family Photo

The King of Christmas Tradition

On Christmas Eve, it is a family tradition to drink a mug of egg nog. The whole family has identical mugs, but in the bottom of one of the mugs, there is a ring. The person that receives the ring is the king (or queen) of Christmas and gets to dress up and takes lots of pictures and open the first present. This year Brayden was our silly king of Christmas.

Family Christmas Play

In this version of the Christmas story, Joseph (aka Brayden) rode the donkey to Bethlehem. I was Mary. The shepherd (aka Spencer) stole baby Jesus to suck on his foot. There was only 1 wise man (Allen). Kayla was the angel.





Kayla our angel.

Kayla's School Christmas Party

The kids played songs on colored bells that correspond to a musical note and Santa came with presents.

Kayla Lost her First Tooth

Kayla had an extremely loose tooth, so Allen brought home a dental tool to pull it out. She has already lost another tooth that wasn't as ready to come out, but Brayden threw a shoe at Kayla's head to speed up the process. I'm sure you can feel the sibling love.

Graham Cracker Houses

We made graham cracker houses with the Eller family and Miller family. Doug Miller even lived in my home town and was in the good old Merced Third Ward.

Spencer really liked eating candy all night.

Kayla and Kaytee Eller made a house together and the others girls - Toree Eller and Theiron Miller - wanted to be in the picture too because their house looked like a tornado.

Kayla and Kaytee with their house and Brayden in the background.

Cologne Christmas Market

The Cathedral is in the background but you can't really see it and our camera battery died so we couldn't take any more pictures.
This is the Weihnachtsmarkt boat - the christmas market boat.

Allen thought this was a cool view.

A British lady took this picture for us. She came to Cologne to see the 9 Christmas markets.

Our kids loved this ride. Spencer cried for about 10 minutes after we took him off of it and put him in the stroller.

Kayla on a pink scooter.

The incredibly gothic cathedral.

Funny Pictures

Here's Kayla with a Christmas stocking on her head.
Brayden had to have a picture with Kayla's stocking on his head too. His head is too big for his stocking.

Kayla wanted me to take a picture of her dancing. This is how it turned out.

Spencer's big cheesy grin!

Decorating the Christmas Tree

Our kids loved getting out the Christmas decorations. I bought plastic ball ornaments this year, so we wouldn't have so many problems with broken glass ornaments. I am really glad I did because Spencer doesn't exactly understand why I don't want him throwing them all over the house. The bright red bows are actually no longer on the tree. I replaced them with bows that are more dark red or burgundy. I like how Kayla stayed in exactly the same pose and is in all of the pictures.

Laundry Basket Fun

Who knew that laundry baskets and pillows could be so much fun!