Christmas 2025!

What a fun Christmas week!

Grandma and Grandpa got here on Sunday ready for the week off of school with the boys. On Monday night we walked through Spring Creek gardens and saw their fun lights and met Santa. Remind me to do our Santa visit earlier next year when Santa's elves are still shopping, not on the 23rd. We heard some new Christmas list ideas that night haha and Camden was pretty confident asking Santa for something two days before Christmas gave you some high chances of finding that under the tree...

Christmas Eve was full of playing games, hanging out, and watching The Best Christmas Pageant Ever. Then we had an early dinner so we could do our final 12 days drop off, drop off a treat to our favorite Christmas lights house, and drop a treat to the firefighters. One of them ended up being the dad of one of Camden's friends from school.

We went home and did brother gifts. This is my favorite part of Christmas. They were so excited to give each other their gift and say something they love about each other when they handed their gift to their brother. I think it's the sweetest thing and I hope they really feel how lucky they are to have each other.

We watched The Nativity movie that I just love. We skipped matching pajamas because I think I'm the only one that was caring about that, and if that's the case, I figured I'm letting that go this year :)

The next morning, Camden really wanted everyone to sing Happy Birthday to Jesus before we went downstairs to open gifts. He also gives the absolute sweetest prayers right now, always saying such pertinent and thoughtful things and he gave a really sweet prayer Christmas morning.

We had a smaller Christmas than other years and I liked it so much more. We were done opening things by 8 and had a nice Christmas breakfast right after that. And then the day had a lot of pajamas and games and talking to family. The sunshine and warmer temperatures made for an unusual Christmas but being able to play at the playground that day was really great.

The next day we walked up at Gateway Natural Area and threw rocks on ice and watched funny little birds (American Dippers, we later learned) swim and dive into the water. We had hot chocolate up there and Christmas cookies from the counter full of Christmas treats. What a counter.

The rest of the weekend we built the playground from Grandma and Grandpa Daetwyler, went out for tacos, watched BYU totally dominate their bowl game, played a lot of Cover Your Assets, and had a fun Winter Break with the boys. I had to talk in church Sunday and teach Young Womens, so I was distracted by those things that weekend but both were good experiences too. I really love being in Young Womens right now.

We felt really lucky to have Grandma and Grandpa Miner here again for Christmas this year. The boys totally love when they're here and it's fun to have them here for all our Christmas traditions.

The tree is still up... I'm not letting myself take it down until I've caught up on my family yearbooks. It's going to torture me out of procrastination. :)

Watching the elves at work!

Waiting in line for Santa.. Camden was very excited! Kept talking about asking him for a gas truck.
First I've heard about that... on December 23rd... :)

Grandma and the lights!

Mr. and Mrs. Claus were so cute :)

Asher was not about sitting on Santa's lap and, I get it.
But he took a picture for a candy cane :)

I love the garden lights that look like produce!
They have peppers, tomatoes, grapes, and more and I just think it's so cute.

Christmas card time!

I really love Christmas cards. They're the happiest mail.

The boys asked multiple times if we were going to do Rudolph pancakes on Christmas Eve again.

Checkers with Grandpa. We had lots of fun down time to play games and hang out!

Christmas Eve Dinner.
We had beef tips and mashed potatoes, a Christmassy salad, Brussels sprouts, and lots of Christmas treats.

We had a treat ready to go for our favorite lights house after driving around a few times this season.
Then we found this one after we handed it out!
Haha this dinosaur house might've taken the prize, but we had lots of good contenders.

Brother gifts is my favorite part of the entire Christmas season.
They each had something they were so excited to give their secret brother,
and they told them what they love about them when they handed them their gift.
I just loved watching their sweet beaming faces and all their love for each other.

Santa worked until almost 1:00 a.m. around here but Christmas is ready!

Westin was in total disbelief when he opened his pair of autographed gloves from our friends, the Holkers.
Dallin plays for the Saints now but used to be in our ward, and Westin just kept staring at these.

Just in pure happy shock.

Nothing like Christmas chaos!

I never want to share my super soft unicorn blanket that Kindal gave me so I got the boys an extra soft one just like it, but, they still love the unicorn one more. I guess I should've got the same color even haha.

Asher LOVES when the librarian at story time does deep breaths with one of these things,
so Santa brought him one. He immediately started deep breathing hahaha.

Cute Christmas boys.

Santa wrote them a letter!

Diane gave Westin an NFL advent calendar and he just absolutely loves this thing.
When all of Christmas was opened, this was what he came back to.

That cranberry orange Christmas Star looks a little monstrous but it's a fun tradition.

Christmas breakfast! Breakfast casserole and the Cranberry Orange Christmas Star.

Asher is a Spot It addict right now. He's so cute.

A little winter walk up at Gateway!
Lots of rocks thrown on ice and watching funny little American Dippers dive in and out of the water and fly away.

We brought some hot chocolate up and it was very necessary!

We counted down to Christmas with a jam advent this year.
It was a lot of toast. But the taste test was fun! Here's the full month's lineup in order from best to worst.
My favorite part was how unpredictable they were -- we're read a name and think we were going to love it and it would be not great, or we'd read one we had no expectations for and it would be one of our favorites.
The unexpected winner was Mango Lime Raspberry, which no one saw coming.
(The real winner will forever be strawberry freezer jam.)

Top 5!
Mango Raspberry Lime, Guava, Apricot Peach, Apple Quince Honey, and Rhubarb Strawberry.

A moment for last place that doesn't even deserve to be named a jam -- lemon elderflower.
It tastes like cleaning supplies.
Maybe they accidentally sent us cleaning supplies.

Grandma and Grandpa Daetwyler sent a happy backyard climbing playground!
The boys were so excited to start building it.

Luna lives for running free at Shepardson.
She's really great at coming right back, especially when we remember her little collar that beeps.

Done! They love climbing on it.

Just leaving this here to commemorate the day I learned that my dream church activity exists.
And I'll be out of town for it.
I didn't even know I could dream this high for a night of fun at a stake activity hahaha. 
Maybe it'll happen again someday... sigh.

Spying on Asher's LAST day of nursery,
which marks the end of nursery here at the Daetwyler home.
We've been support parents in nursery for like 4+ years of the last 10,
because our kids just never really loved that transition.
Asher has been going to primary singing time with his future sunbeam crew this month and I already know he's going to love transitioning to primary with his brothers.
These milestones, man.

Merry Christmas & Happy New Year!

We had such a Merry Christmas!

The boys were up at a very reasonable time of 7:00, which I'm always surprised by. I think maybe they have such a hard time falling asleep from excitement that they sleep a little later? I don't know, I just feel like we have way earlier mornings around here than Christmas Morning usually and it doesn't add up in my mind. :)

The boys woke up Grandma and Grandpa, then it was Stockings time! We were all done opening presents before 9:00am and that felt a little early haha. I feel like older boys drive the morning forward in their excitement now where when they were littler they would get more distracted playing as they went. But it was so fun, and we had a good day playing with new games and toys and walking to the school to play outside for a bit. We seriously lucked out on weather this month and I'm so grateful it made it possible for my parents to visit us for Christmas time.

We spent a lot of nights playing Codenames after the boys went to bed, and a lot of snacking from our counter of neighbor-treat-goodness. We got Thai take out one night and had fun just being together in that time warp between Christmas and New Years.

My parents drove home Friday morning, and just a few hours later Katie and her boys came up to make gingerbread cookies with us. It was so fun to turn around and have cousin time during the hours we're usually all bummed after Grandma and Grandpa leave.

On New Year's Eve we had our traditional appetizers for dinner, then went to the Baileys house for more appetizers :) and games. Asher took a super late nap that day which was perfect, and we kept all the boys there until about 8:30. Then it was home to sleep until next year. But Westin begged to stay at the Bailey's with his best buddy and make it to midnight. Quinn's mom brought him home soon after that and he was so happy to have stayed up for the first time. Looks like there's no turning back from that :) And waiting up for him was pretty surreal. We'll have many nights in our future waiting up for kids to come home, but I wasn't expecting to have one so soon and it just made him feel way too old. I can't believe he'll turn 10 this year. A decade of motherhood coming up. Still soooo much to learn.

I wrote down a couple goals in Social, Mental, Physical, and Spiritual categories for the year and kept hem very simple and measurable. I love the feeling of a fresh start. But I also semi-believe the new year starts when my kids go back to school, which is not until the second week of January, so, aiming for those resolutions then haha. We had such a fun week. 

I love a good Christmas breakfast. We repeated last year's cranberry start and overnight breakfast casserole because we all liked it so much. Actually I put a vote to changing to a Nutella version of the star but it was shot down, cranberry orange held on.

Camden totally loved a library book we had this year called Pizza Mouse and I found a used copy of it online since it's discontinued. He has it memorized and loves to read it. It was so fun to watch him open this. He'd randomly talk about the book after we returned it to the library and how he missed it haha. Sweet boy.

Asher got some wheels!
Which came not a day too soon because for the last two weeks he's been trying to steal Camden's bike haha.

Christmas chaos

The three older bros got a Yoto player and Asher wants in on it... whoops. I didn't really believe them when they said they're great for 2-12 on the site and figured it would just be for the older kids.
Hoping these buy us some successful flight time this year!

I bought some battery candles for holiday dinners and they make me happy :)

This cutie has been wearing this snake bracelet night and day lately.

Day-after-Christmas trip to Scheels to see the animals and find Grandpa some boots.

Ferris wheel ride with Grandma and Grandpa!
Asher got the two of us kicked off because he wouldn't stop crying haha.
But everyone else had an enjoyable ride.

Stair project!

Ok magnetic Mixtiles really are awesome.
I ordered these from there and then the small cute varied gold frames from Etsy to give it a more eclectic look, need to add those in.

Nightly Codenames and treats with mom and dad.

Stair project done!
I wanted all four babies on my wall, and toddlers.
Because those babies and toddlers are slipping into little and big boys and sometimes it's hard to grasp the little people they used to be. I pause on my stairs a lot now :)

Asher loves his Grandma and Grandpa!

A walk downtown to see the lights on Main Street and all around there.

Cocoa and Toast might be my very top comfort food.
Has to be homemade bread, and not the dense kind.
Has to be creamy chocolate.
I can't tell you how many times I ate this at my grandma's house growing up.

Always so sad to say goodbye to Grandma and Grandpa.
We were so lucky to have them for Christmas this year.

Luckily just a few hours after they left we had Katie and the boys up for Gingerbread cookies.
I was so happy they could come up then and distract us from being alone again :)

A Broncos cookie, a Holker cookie (guy in our ward that plays for CSU -- he's up for the NFL draft this year and Westin is stoked about it). Football boy.

Asher at the park is a total vibe.

New Year's Eve Sunday!

Another holiday, another candlelight dinner ;) 
I want the boys to remember special dinners!

Always apps for dinner on New Year's Eve.

We went to a friend's house for games and food until about 8:30, then came home to put the little guys to bed. But Westin stayed with a friend there and made it to midnight for his first time. Waiting up for him at home seemed like a glimpse of all the many late nights to come when we have older kids out with friends... so crazy.