Anyone who has read Lord of the Rings knows about 2nd Breakfasts, but at our house we often have a Second Christmas! 
For example, when we went to Aunt Janie and Uncle Calvin’s for dinner Christmas night, the kids opened more presents from Janie and Calvin and even their sweet girls got the kids some gifts!  I’m so sad I didn’t take any pictures!!!
Rock’s parents often come right after Christmas for a visit, as they did this year, and we got to celebrate all over again!  And this year Libby and I also took a quick trip to WA to visit my parents to give them their Christmas present and Libby got a THIRD Christmas! 
(I realize that it is now January and I am just now finishing up the Christmas blogs, but I’m not sure I’ve ever finished a Christmas blog before January, so why start now! )

Here’s the G&G Hymas gift exchange:

Levi got a new stuffed animal from G&G.  He now has a dog named Doggy, a fox named Foxy, and a dog named Doxy.

Liberty got a tea set that sings!  She was tickled pink about it!

Even Grandpa had some tea.

Same day, different outfit

Here she is dancing to her Tea Pot (you’ll have to tune out the talking in the background…sorry)

Christmas Eve:

The PJ’s
I didn’t actually get a picture of the jammies this year because we had a little hiccup in the tradition this year.  The pj’s I got for Cade were so big they were falling off of him.  To say he was seriously upset about it would be an understatement.  The thought of going to bed on Christmas eve without his new pj’s was just too much for our over sugared, incredibly hyper and excited eight year old.  He collapsed in tears on the floor.  I really wanted to remind him there were millions of children in the world who don’t get new pajama’s every Christmas but I did feel bad for him because I knew I would have been upset as an eight year old too.   Empathy won out and since I had to go out that night anyway,  I stopped at Target, which was luckily open until 9:00.  Incidentally, I’m considering doing all my Christmas shopping on Christmas Eve 1/2 an hour before the stores close because Target was a ghost town!  It was awesome!  
You can see their jammies in the Christmas morning pics below. (Since I’m sure you all wait with baited breath every Christmas season to see what new pajama’s my children get to wear!)

The Nativity


The cub scout shepherd

Mary on her donkey

Mary eating her donkey’s hay

Christmas Morning:
The Presents-
It was love at first sight

The Lego Christmas-Yes, ANOTHER one.

Yep, they make pink yegos!

Candy canes stuck to the candy cane pj’s

This is how Liberty ate her Christmas cereal.  She took them all out of her bowl and then drank the milk.

This kitchen is the other thing Santa brought Liberty.  Feminists would undoubtedly be aghast to note that she is also wearing the tutu from her brothers AND the apron from Rock and I.   Oh, and she’s barefoot too!  But lest anyone worry that she is being totally and completely brainwashed, remember that she is surrounded by boys and their toys all day long, she LOVES to play in the sandbox and get totally muddy and she shoots dart guns with the best of em.  Yes.  She shoots guns.  And so do my boys.

Santa’s helper “Auntie Claus” should feel very good about helping with this because Liberty loves her kitchen.

Hope you all had a very merry Christmas!  We sure did!

Rock has out done himself this year.  He made the Freedom Tower for our gingerbread house this time!  For those who don’t know, the Freedom Tower is the new World Trade Center 1 building at Ground Zero. 

(This is what it will look like when finished)

Right now it looks about like this:

Rock watched it grow bit by bit every day on his commute into NYC so now he has immortalized it in gingerbread.  Though, I guess gingerbread, by its very nature, is not immortal.  Well anyway, here was the process:

The cardboard replica.

The baking process.

The assembly:

The decorating:


They used gum for the windows.

And the finished product:

Libby called it the Ninja bread house.

We are kicking ourselves for not doing this last year when we still lived in the east where this could really be appreciated.  But hopefully the mom and kids we gave it to this year will enjoy it anyway!

Merry Christmas!
And just for the record: This is always a torturous experience, these Christmas Sunday pictures. Trying to get them all to sit still and keep their fingers down, and smile at the same time without making them (or mom) cry takes a LOT of effort so I hope you all appreciate these pictures every year!
Ok, now you can look.

And trying to get a two year old to sit still, not play with her dress, AND smile is not easy either!

Liberty’s coat is nice and warm….and big.

Who needs an air bag when you’ve got a coat like this?

The other day I found Liberty actually trying to make herself pink with a marker. 

Do you think we should go see a shrink?

Levi John Hymas turned the big Five this week.  He is STILL very much into foxes so we made him a fox cake.

He got one of the Lego characters he’s been wanting from his brothers.

And something he’s been dreaming of since last Christmas.

One of our Christmas traditions is to wrap up all our Christmas books (+ one new one) each year and put them under the tree to open each night of December. 

The new one this year was President Monson’s story of the train he gave to the neighbor boy down the street.  He told the story when I was a little girl and I Still remember it.  I was so excited to find that they made it into a children’s book!

Last night, Reagan got to read.

One of my favorites stories is The Last Straw by Paula Palangi McDonald.  It’s the story of a mother who wants to help her four small children stop fighting and feel the spirit of Christmas so they draw names to serve each other every week until Christmas Eve.  Each time they serve their person they put a piece of straw into a little wooden manger for the baby Jesus to sleep in Christmas Eve.  This mother’s approach had the desired affect and so we decided to implement it.  It is so fun to watch the kids serve each other and us.  But Reagan is by far the best at it.  He is always watching and waiting for the chance to serve.  He remembers every day when the rest of us sometimes forget.  This week he picked Liberty’s name. He has been giving her piggy back rides, changing her diaper and getting her breakfast, among other services.  But this one was my favorite. 

All on his own he set up a tea party for her.  He got them all dressed up (note the boa and purse, though the glasses and ties are a nice touch too), set the table and poured the water.  It was awesome!  I love my sweet, thoughtful, loving boy.  (And so does Liberty!)

Around our house we’re getting into the Christmas spirit.  We started by decorating our tree.


When Liberty saw the tree for the first time she said, “That’s a tree.  It is taller than me.”

Now the kids have the perfect hiding place to do their reading!


For those who are curious, Reagan is reading Lord of the Rings and Cade is reading Harry Potter 3. Rock recently fulfilled his life long dream of reading the Hobbit to the boys and Reagan decided to dive right into LotR. I was amazed. Never thought he’d make it past the first chapter, but he did!

We watched the First Presidency’s Christmas Devotional on Sunday and when Liberty saw President Monson she said, “It’s President Monster!”

This year we are getting to see what a contrast there is between Christmas with a girl and Christmas with boys.  I blogged several years ago about Christmas with boys:

This is the nativity… after an explosion.

This is the nativity… after Liberty.

Sugar and spice and everything nice.  Sorry, but it’s true.

This is what Levi has been working on in school this year:

This Thanksgiving we are thankful to have so much family nearby.  We had the Byams, the Derek Wesels and Alli over for Thanksgiving. 

I used the opportunity to get my first nice set of dishes and a new tablecloth.  I love doing this kind of thing so I had lots of fun with it.  Here’s the spread!

Here are the place cards the kids helped me make.

Aren’t leave rubbings awesome!!!  I love fall!

And now for the most important part of Thanksgiving-the People!

Cute little Dustin in Liberty’s doll stroller.

Cutting the turkey

Too many screens!!!

Cleaning off the turkey.  I’m so glad Uncle Calvin was willing to do this most disgusting job! 

Dessert!  Alli was shocked at the number of yummy options. 

Lincoln REALLY got into his chocolate pie.

 
Liberty, on the other hand, was so tired, she couldn’t get into her chocolate pie.  She sat like this for at least a minute.

Hope you all had a happy, deliriously tiring Thanksgiving!