Santa Baby

I promise December is almost behind us. Hopefully before we move on to February. But I couldn't move on to the new year without posting some of the most important moments of the girls' Christmas.

Gracie decided she wanted to tell Santa what she wanted this year in person, not just in her letter. We always left it up to her, and this year she was determined to tell him she wanted stuff for her baby Emerson (the doll she got for Christmas last year that she adores and takes everywhere), a Zhu-Zhu pet and a snow cone machine. At the Macfarlane family Christmas party, she finally had the chance to sit on his lap and tell him her Christmas list.

Ellie, on the other hand, always said she didn't want to sit on his lap but just tell him (from a distance) what she wanted. After seeing her sister sit on Santa's lap, she changed her mind. She was very serious about the whole situation and hardly looked at Santa, but she made sure he knew she wanted candy, Barbies and Shrek (the 4th movie).

After the kids had their moments with Santa, Scott got to have one of his own as one of Santa's helpers. After Santa headed back to the north pole, the kids all opened their gift from Santa. Ellie got the mermaid Barbie she asks for every time we go to Target and Gracie got a Snoopy snow cone machine. They were both in heaven. And Gracie informed us THAT was the real Santa, not the one at the mall or the one at her school Christmas party.

Holiday Lights and Baby Reindeer

I'm trying to get caught up on December so I can move on to January, so here is a quick peek at a few things we did to add to the holiday fun...

Christmas in Utah isn't complete without a visit to Temple Square to see the lights and the nativity.

One of our favorite December outings was Christmas in the Village at Gracie's school. It is always fun to see the programs after spending a few months hearing Gracie sing all the songs they were learning all the time.

We also got to see some of Santa's reindeer. The girls were a little disappointed that the reindeer only came close enough to pet once, but it was fun to see a girl reindeer and her baby. We had a discussion about which reindeer was the husband/daddy. Then we finished off the evening with hot chocolate floats (not as yummy as we hoped).

Let it snow!

We heart snow around our house. The cold temps don't keep us from having fun during the winter months, and we had some serious fun sledding with our friends Jim and Becky in December.


Becky was such a great sport since the girls insisted that she (and only she) could pull the sled down the hill.

Then Scott had some fun of his own...

A great big man – entirely made of snow

The morning the girls woke up to the first big snow, they were so excited to go play in it (long before the sun came up and early enough that Scott hadn't left for work). Scott helped them throw their snow clothes over their jammies and they all headed outside.

Scott helped make their first snowman of the season. And they all had fun eating snow and throwing it at each other.



Much more Macfarlane winter fun to come...