The after party...

After Christmas we took a day off and did NOTHING!!! I don't think I even got out of my pajamas that day. It was wonderful.

Tyler got a huge Alien Invasion Lego set that he spent almost the entire day doing. Here is the before and after.

Did you want to see that closer up? I thougth so, otherwise taking so many pictures of this lego set would've been silly!

Well after all of that Alex couldn't let Tyler steal the show so he got out his Lego stuff and we took pictures of his things. They are not new from Christmas but hey, why not take a few shoots of them.

Alex spend some quality time with Nate making paper airplanes out of a kit he got from Grandma and Grandpa.

I'm not sure where Abby was all day but this is what Lu did all day. She's pretty skilled with the IPad.

We ended up running some sort of errand that evening so we loaded the whole crew up to get out of the house for a while. Nate ran into Walmart to do our semi-annual cereal stock up while the rest of us waited in the car. Here's a view of us waiting in the car.

What would I do without the phone and DVD player to entertain?

Outside the car I caught a beautiful sunset.

It was a perfect ending to a nice relaxing day with the family.

Christmas 2011

We had a great Christmas this year. It was pretty relaxing and low key.

My favorite part of Christmas is the Singleton party. It was always held on Christmas Eve until a couple of years ago when we moved it to the 23rd. It's always been at that party when it really starts to feel like Christmas. This was our first Chirstmas without Grandma Singleton and the party just happened to fall on the 6 month anniversary of her death. It put a little sober feeling over the party but it was still a very enjoyable time.

As a kid I always remember having a little talent show at the Singleton party. All of my cousins would play amazing piano pieces and my family would do things like put nylon stockings on our heads and sing Jingle Bells as we pulled the stockings off and our faces were smashed and funny looking. Good memories....

This year my cousins Shannon and Brooke played Sleigh Ride on the piano. It was the only talent of the night but it brought back great memories. It is a seriously difficult piece and they played it wonderfully. They are amazing!

On Christmas Eve we had Adam and Megan over for our Arnesen party. We are the only Arnesen's around so it's a pretty small party! We always love getting together with them but don't do it enough.

Megan made homemade ice cream for dessert. The kids loved the toppings and especially loved crushing the oreos.

Here we are with the spread for our ice cream.

After the party we got ready to put the kids to bed and read The Night Before Christmas by the Christmas tree. The kids actually went to sleep pretty good this year and Nate and I got to work! We give one gift to each child and Santa brings one gift. At 11pm I realized that the one and only gift I had for Alex was no where to be found. To this day we have never found it. After a bit of panicking and some quick thinking we turned an extra gift that we were planning to give to all the kids into Alex's gift.

Here are some of the Christmas morning pictures.

After opening presents at home we drove to my parents church to attend with them. I LOVED having a few presents in the morning and then off to church to enjoy the spirit and remember exactly why we are celebrating.

After church we headed to my parents house for breakfast (for lunch) and then more gift giving and recieving with cousins. I wish I had gotten a picture of the pile of presents there. It was massive!

Here is Abby almost getting lost in her pile of gifts from Grandma and Grandpa (they love to spoil the grandkids!)

Here are Tyler and Alex with a favorite gift from the day. And one of Lu because she stood still for a picture and almost smiled!

And one last picture because I love it! It's my Grandpa Singleton who must be the most perfect man on earth! I love him dearly.

It was a great Christmas!