Christmas Eve and Christmas Day

Well friends I am back today sharing more of our Christmas celebrating. We spent lots of time eating!! We started with a yummy brunch.

Later in the day we headed to church for Christmas Eve service.

Then we came back for a yummy dinner. 

More pics with the fam!

We opened a few more gifts that night.

We woke up on Christmas morning to see Santa had come! While we waited for everyone to wake up, Jadyn made herself comfortable in the most unusual way. :)

Waiting to run over and open our gifts!

Santa was sneaky this year and even covered our gifts so we couldn't see them!

Matt and I were excited to show off our new aprons from Atlee! 

My mom and I were festive for Christmas Day!

Jadyn picked out Christmas dinner and we made everything she asked for. She even helped make a couple things! After lunch we headed to the park for a couple activities. We started with a football game. My team lost, but we took great pictures!

Then we competed in our annual Christmas Day basketball game. We tried to re-create the picture we took two years ago in the same spot. I think we did pretty good!

We had dips and appetizers that night, my favorite!

We played lots of games while my family was here including Christmas Family Feud, 

Christmas trivia, 

Christmas Carol fill in the blank, 

unscramble the song title, and a few new board games we got. This night we played lots of dice games.

We also headed over to "Christmas on Comstock" to check out their display. The entire neighborhood has their lights synced up together. They won the Great Christmas Light Fight on ABC last year. Matt and I drove around the neighborhood last year, but this year we chose to walk.

It was such a beautiful sight! My family stayed a couple days after Christmas. Come back again soon to check out how we ended 2016!

Pre-Christmas Celebrations

Well as you saw from our last post, we were stuck in Denver longer than expected. I had planned to spend a couple days getting ready for my family before they got here. Well plans changed, and I had a few hours instead. They arrived Wednesday afternoon!

I put these two to work right away slicing vegetables they wouldn't eat.

It was my parents' anniversary so we celebrated the best way possible, together, with a cookie pie!

We had several plans while they were here. First up, checking out some lights. We headed through downtown Chandler to make our way to Cherry Lane. The entire cul-de-sac decorates for Christmas!

One house evens opens up their backyard to tell the entire Christmas story. This was the biggest inflatable I have ever seen!!

Then we headed over to the Mesa Temple to check out their display.

We had such a beautiful night to look at all the lights!

We woke up the next morning to have this guy turn 27! He got another cookie pie-his favorite!

Matt has tried and tried to get someone to do a Polar Plunge with him in our pool. He was determined to get in the pool on his birthday!

My dad turns into our pool boy when he comes down.

We opened a few gifts.

And had his favorite for lunch, BBQ. 

That night we had another favorite of his, the Chick-fil-a party platter.

His other request for the day was to go to the GCU game. He was excited!

My personal favorite is watching the cheerleaders. They are good!

The halftime entertainment was also phenomenal. It was three dancers from "So You Think You Can Dance." They did not disappoint.

We got free stocking hats and made several attempts at getting good selfies!

One group felt bad for us, and wanted to use the tree too so we did get one good picture!

Matt also walked us over to the new Soccer Stadium.

We came home and taught my family the Game of Things. We ended up playing several times while they were here, and Jadyn and Matt clearly know everyone the best as they always scored the most points!

The following day we made a trip out to Mesa Marketplace for everyone to finish their Christmas shopping. We stopped at one of our favorite new places, Sodalicious, on the way back.

I filled a cookie pie order and delivered it that day. We made new boxes, and I think they are super fun!

We attempted more shopping at Nolan's favorite place, Shoppers. Doesn't he look so happy!?!

We ended up with several gifts under the tree!

We headed for dinner at Organ Stop Pizza. My grandparents have taken us there many times, but no one had been in a while so we decided to go in honor of them.

We came back, and Atlee and my dad could not wait for us to open our gifts they bought us that day. For several years now, my dad and Atlee give us gifts together. They like to shop! We have received snuggies, footie pajames, stocking hats, you name it! This year, each gift had a little story to go along with it.

You may notice, they didn't even try to find Christmas bags to wrap our gifts.

When you buy for yourself, you get exactly what you want! Some people got one gift, others got several. I think Atlee bought herself at least five shirts we didn't get to see!

Here is what we ended up with!

I always give Matt a hard time about spending way too much time on football, hence my new shirt. Jadyn loves checking lost and founds for free hoodies and shirts, and Nolan likes to make comments similar to his new sign!

We also these lovely "timeless" shirts to cheer on the Cowboys!

Nolan also decided to share his gifts that night!

We ended the night watching Miracle on 34th Street and enjoying some popcorn and cookies!

Check back soon for more of our Christmas celebrations!!