Christmas #1

We were able to celebrate Christmas three times this year:  once with our own little family in Colorado, once with my family in Provo, and once in Salt Lake with the Marchants.  Our first Christmas was celebrated a week early just with the four of us, for two main reasons.  1.) Traveling is far easier without hauling all the presents to the kids and each other along and 2.) As much as we LOVE being with our families on Christmas, it's really important to us to establish our own family traditions, too.  

So on "Christmas Eve" (really Friday the 17th) we went to downtown Parker and enjoyed the small-town lights displays and festivities there.  

We got hot chocolate at a little coffee shop downtown and listened to some Christmas stories read by some ladies from the library.

And then we went on a carriage ride.

It was chilly, but oh, so fun!

 We headed home, read the Christmas story from the scriptures, and the boys opened their new Christmas jammies.

Cute jammies on cute boys!

I won't give a blow-by-blow of Christmas morning.  Suffice it to say that we had a fabulous time together and felt very blessed.

On Saturday afternoon, we went swimming at the Lone Tree Rec Center as per tradition.  The boys had a blast!  After watching his daddy go down the big water slide, Ty took off to go try it, too.  He wasn't even close to the height requirement, nor can he swim well enough to get to the side after being spit out at the bottom, but that didn't seem to bother him a bit.  Adam went to the bottom and caught him.  I was afraid he was going to be freaked out after riding such a big slide alone, but when he got back to me, he said, "That was awesome, Mom!"  The kid has zero fear of water.
The best part of our Christmas?  Having a whole day together as a family.  Now that's what I call awesome!