christmas weekend

on thursday nite we left the babies at home and went to bellevue for shopping, dinner and a movie.

waiting to go in to the theater.

obnoxiously saving seats. and by seats i mean the entire theater. apparently we invited the redmond stake.

we started the christmas eve celebrations over at craig's uncle's house. after dinner, we played a rousing game of white elephant.

tagg loved white elephant. especially the part when he got to steal a present. quite the delinquent.

then came the legitimate presents. grandpa rod and grandma cheri gave tagg a hex bug habitat. he was in heaven. and even allowed us to pet his hex bugs.

sully got the elmo guitar he had been waiting for. he loved it! except now i cant get the "elmo's world" theme song out of my head.

right as we were leaving we decided to gather all the smith men up to take a picture........ i reaaaaaallly need a girl! :)

on our way home from the smith's we stopped by outback to say hello to my family. the restaurant was packed (who would have guessed?). they were going to be waiting for a long time to even get a table, so we just took some pictures and headed home.

craig and i laughed so hard when we saw my mom and megan walk in together. dressing like twinners at that age?!

anna and rachel.

my mom and me.

my mom and sully.

my mom, dad and sully.

tucker, taylor and me. told you we took a lot of pictures.

finally! christmas morning. tagg was so excited to see what santa had brought him. he was so cute opening his gifts.

we finally woke sully up at about 10.15 (he's going through a major growth spurt!) to open his presents before we had to go to church. his favorite present of all was his electric toothbrush. he's his daddy's boy!

after church, we went over to my parents' house to opening up a few more gifts. my mom surprised tagg and tucker with matching circle quilts! they are so beautiful and cozy.

that nite, we had a nativity. taylor and eli made a hilarious shepherd and sheep. and tucker creeped us out with his touchy-feely interpretation of joseph.

tagg was the cutest wiseman i have ever seen. and anna recited the entire angel part by memory. over-achiever much?

it was a very sweet nativity.

we had a wonderful christmas season with family and friends and cant wait for the new year to begin!

christmas nites

last nite, we got together and decorated our gingerbread houses. and i say decorated because megan took a little break and didn't make our houses from scratch this year. but don't worry, we didn't give her a hard time about it.....

tagg had so much fun decorating his house with eli. he asked me if i wanted his house to be funny or pretty. you be the judge on which direction he took. i was most excited about the little candles i put in the windows on my house. it was difficult for me to introduce more colors into my house but i don't regret my decision. (take gingerbread house decorating seriously, much?)

everyone with their houses. thanks again megan... oh wait.....

tuesdays and wednesday nites get pretty boring around here (craig works late) so last week, the boys and i had a little christmas tree photo shoot.

i love december and my two little peanuts.

some of sully's tricks

usually kiddies don't preform when you ask them to. but sully kind of loves the camera.

sully is 16 months. and we love him so much. cannot believe he will be going into the nursery in february!......

first (hopefully annual!) ornament exchange

my friends and i had our first ornament slash cookie exchange last week. i set up the cookie table a day early because i love how party decorations make a home feel so festive.

i made my ginger cookies for the exchange. and for my breakfast, lunch and dinner the next day.

when all the girls got here, we exchanged our ornaments. we had picked names out of hat and kept it all secret until it was time to open the ornaments.

the cookie table with everyone's treats.

a couple of hours before the party i panicked because i had no idea how everyone was going to get their cookies home. so my mom ran to packaging specialties for me and picked up these amazing treat boxes. score one for my mom.

all of our beautiful ornaments.

pretty soon, i am going to be wearing these things.

because i cant get enough of my vintage ornaments. so i am trying to come up with different ways to display them around my house (one can only have so many ornament wreaths around a little apartment). i saw this idea of hanging them on an old screen door and loved it. this is my version.

christmas carol 2011

this year, craig's family joined us for our annual trip to see the christmas carol.

i love getting dressed up and going downtown with craig.

afterwards, we went over to the sheraton to see the amazing gingerbread houses. this "rudolph the red nosed reindeer" inspired house was our favorite. and we got to meet the creative artist who made it. :)

downtown seattle, (when dry!) during the christmas season, is so special.

seeing santa
we took the boys to see santa this week. we were positive that sully would not be able to handle it (he is QUITE the mama's boy). but despite some back-arching and crying, we managed to get this not-completely-tragic shot of him. and of course, tagg was as happy as can be.

finding our tree

we went to get our tree last friday. my boys love this tradition. stomping though mud, carrying a saw, and chopping down a tree. whats not to love?

i cant ever resist a picture at a painted cut out. i love my happy little elves.

after trekking through the farm twice, we decided on this tree.

luckily, tagg brought his little saw along to help with the process. he is one hundred percent nuts.

i am not kidding. nuts. (this picture was taken 2 seconds after he had bonked heads with sully a little too hard.)

tagg and his tree all ready to go!