A very Merry Christmas

We had such a wonderful Christmas season this year! Most of all, it was so great to have Colby around all the time. I mean, not that I would've chosen to have him lose his job right before Christmas - but being the silver-lining kinda gal that I am (or at least try to be), I definitely loved having him around all day long for the whole month. It made for lots of great family-together time.

Since having Adam, it just doesn't really occur to me to take pictures very often (since it interferes with me hugging & kissing him all day long :D). So I don't have a lot to offer by way of visual addition to the blog, but here's a few bits that I did manage to catch:

Visit to Temple Square

The night started out a little backwards - on the way down, I couldn't get Adam to fall asleep in the car (a newborn, not sleeping on a car ride?!), and then right next to his mad crying Emma did this:
Whaa?! Emma, alseep in her car seat? Yeah, that hasn't happened since she was about 14 months old. Crazy stuff.


I decided that I wanted to start a Christmas tradition with my kids, having them help me make cookies for Santa & making special cookies, not just chocolate chip or sugar cookies. So I went with one of my most favorite cookies, chocolate crinkles (now dubbed "Santa Cookies"). I haven't made them for over a decade, and couldn't find my old recipe - so thank you to Isa for posting one recently on her blog, they turned out quite well! Perfect activity for afternoon on Christmas Eve.

Emma's favorite part was shaking her powdered-sugar-covered hands over me, claiming the she was sprinkling "pixie dust" on me. (She's currently very into Tinkerbell.) Thanks, Emma, I definitely needed a little sprinkling of pixie dust to improve my clean shirt. :D

Adam doing some serious supervising of the cookie-making

"See Adam, the women do the baking , and WE get to enjoy the results! Mwahahaha!"We had a great time at the Harmon's for Christmas Eve (forgot both of my cameras, epic fail!), and then headed home to get Emma to bed so that Santa could come make his delivery.

Christmas morning was, in a word, perfect. Emma was so sweet, getting excited about each present whether it was for her or not. Adam sat happily in the swing, just enjoying the merry mood. After opening presents, we continued one of my favorite Norton family traditions with a birthday cake for Baby Jesus. Emma's been so into all our nativity decorations & the whole story of Christmas, so I think she loved having the chance to sing Happy Birthday to Baby Jesus.

The whole Christmas season was wonderful, and keeping things on a smaller budget this year really helped to keep the focus on the right things. I'm so overhwhelmed with love for my little family, and so excited to see what the new year will bring for us!