Here’s the handsome boy at Red Robin afterwards.  

We are grateful so many family members were here to help him celebrate his big day. All four grandparents and lots of cousins and aunts and uncles. I’m sure his great Grandpa’s John Wesel and John Roper were there in spirit too.  His Aunt Alli even passed up a spectacular, possibly life altering, New Years Eve party to be here for it.  But she just happens to share the same birthday with Levi and when you are born one week before Christmas you need all the moral support (and attention) you can get since you don’t get much on your birthday.  Thanks, Al.

Liberty, being the serious little person that she is, knows the true meaning of Christmas and has no qualms letting you know it too.  When her aunt asked her if she was excited for Santa to come, she looked at her with a very serious face and said, “You DO know the real reason we celebrate Christmas is because of Jesus, right?”  

The Christmas Eve Gift

Instead of PJ’s this year, Reagan got a duvet cover.  Yep, that really is army/dark green.  Sigh.  It was so much more fun to decorate when they didn’t care.

Everyone went to bed beautifully-with the help of some Christmas Juice.

Santa was brilliant and gave the boys the first 3 Star Wars movies in their stockings (which he leaves by their beds) and told them to watch one so their parents could sleep longer. 

***Public Service Announcement*** 

For those of you 30 years old and older, “the first 3 Star Wars movies” means the original 3 created. There are a few things I will never be able to do and which very definitely show my age.  The first is that I will never be able to call BYU Idaho anything but Ricks and the second is that I will never be able to think of the original Star Wars movies as numbers 4, 5 and 6.  They are 1, 2 and 3 and my children and anyone else who wants to converse with me about them will just have to accept that.

Santa left 4,5 and 6 (got that straight in your heads?) for the kids upstairs by the Christmas tree.

Along with dart guns, a life time supply of darts that should last about a month, and MORE Minecraft.

A few favorite gifts:

Liberty’s favorite gift this year was the ballerina snow globe her brothers gave her.  She carried it around all day. 

After Christmas we enjoyed a visit from Rock’s parents.  They gave Rock and I several hotel nights anywhere in the world!  This was my favorite gift.  We are so excited!  The only problem is that we can’t figure out where to go. I want a warm beach somewhere and Rock wants mountains or Europe. I know-‘first world problems’.   

There was no relaxing for Grandma while she was here.  She had her hair done at Liberty Dawn’s Hair Salon.

And she made us some amazing cake pops which are now legendary!  😉

Grandpa was not quite so ambitious but he did demonstrate the perseverance it takes to color a whole page in the cool coloring book they gave us.  It was a huge hit at our house, which is shocking considering the fact that we’ve had stacks of coloring books sitting unused at our house for years until a girl came along and started using them!

 Here is Cade’s finished product.  Wish I’d gotten a picture of Grandpa’s, it was pretty awesome too.

Grandma and Grandpa joined us for our annual New Year’s Eve Finger Food Dinner.  

And that concludes 2015!  

Can’t wait to see what 2016 brings.

Rock did actually get around to making a good one this year too.

My favorite part is the pretzel wood pile.

Rock was particularly proud of the icicles and circle windows on the right side. 

The annual Christmas Sunday picture 

Best
(yes, even though Cade looks constipated)

Cutest

Best teen attitude-Never try to get four children smiling at the same time if one of them is a teenager.

Funny

Funnier

If you want a miracle, wait till Christmas.  We love the Piano Guys at our house.  They have been a huge inspiration for our boys.  So of course once Reagan started playing the cello, the boys would want to play together just like the Piano Guys, right?  If you know my boys at all you can imagine what those practice sessions were like.  And if you are imagining what those sessions were like right now, you are lucky, because your imagination is a lot more pleasant than the real thing was and you can simply chuckle at the futility of such a thing.  If you don’t know my boys, here’s how it would go: Reagan would tell Cade all the things he was doing wrong, Cade would over explode in tears and frustration and I would have to put a stop to Piano Guys II.  But we have Old Pachelbel to thank for our Christmas miracle.  For some reason they decided they wanted to play Pachelbel’s Canon bad enough to be patient with each other.  And so, here is our miracle.

Stay tuned for more Christmas at the Hymas House.