Evelyne's First Christmas! (2015)

My beautiful little family on Christmas day!

Oh goodness, like our lives in general, Christmas this year was a total blur! Every day was something fun to do and something good to eat! I'll start with the weekend before Christmas...

Josh and I got to attend my work Christmas party at the Palms Hotel ballroom. It was a blast! My favorite part was getting dressed up and spending alone time with my handsome hubby kid free!! Oh, and I got numerous compliments from complete strangers on my dress :). That's always a plus!

My Aunt Gena and Grandpa Cooley and his wife Diana came to town! Everyone came over to our house to visit and play with the kids! We spent hours playing and talking and then later went out to Chili's for dinner. The kids did great the entire day and I had so much fun catching up with everyone! Grandpa is suffering from multiple health issues and who knows how long he will be with us. So I was happy my kids got a chance to play with him. Austin loved coloring with him! Grandpa used to be such a good artist!

Everybody ooohh'ing and awe'ing over Evie :).

Little Eve loved Aunt Gena!

I have an amazing family!

Art lesson with Great Grandpa Cooley.

Eve chowing down on the rib bone we gave her to keep her entertained at dinner. I was surprised at how much she loved it! She freaked out if anyone tried to take it away from her! Kinda like a rabid dog hahaha.

We went to Grandma Helm's house and had a Helm family Christmas party! My cousin Heather and her son Alex came to visit from Texas, and Uncle Ken and Aunt Diana were there as well! We had fun eating and opening presents. Grandma was so happy to have her family around her and the kids loved all the fun antique Christmas toys she had gotten out for them! Austin's favorite was the train! Eve loved all the dancing and singing bears :). The Helm side hardly ever gets together so this was a very special night. I only wished my Dad could have been there... but Uncle Ken did a great job of taking over his role with presents, even if Austin is still to this day scared of him and refused to look him in the eye ;).

We rarely get family pictures together so we took a lot!

I may be biased, but my baby boy has the most beautiful blue eyes!

Good ol' Uncle Ken. He's always been a little rough around the edges.... scares the heck out of Austin ;).

The train!!

Helping Grandma open the presents we gave her!

Helping Evie open her presents as well... what a nice guy.

Eve seemed slightly confused by all the present opening since this year is her first Christmas.

Snuggles with her new Christmas Bear!

The good picture...

And the goofy pictures....

Oh Austin, for the life of me I don't understand why you refuse to smile for pictures!

Love my Sadie.

Sisters make life bearable, and I have two amazing ones!

Each kid got a chance to cuddle with Great Grandma :).

Somewhere in the week before Christmas we received presents in the mail from Grandma and Grandpa Ronnenkamp and had a little pre-Christmas fun! Then we Face-Timed with them to show them how much the kids loved their gifts :).

Evie loved her present!

Austin and Mommy got new aprons for our fun in the kitchen!

On Christmas Eve, Austin and I spent the day baking sugar cookies and making frosting! Then, when Dad got home, we had a cookie decorating party!! It was so much fun and soooo yummy! Austin and I have a special place together in the kitchen and I will take any excuse I can get to bake with him! After that, we all climbed in the car and drove around the neighborhood looking at all the Christmas lights! Eve fell asleep, but Austin was seriously soooo adorable! Listening to his excitement over each decorated house was like experiencing Christmas for the first time all over again! He would scream, "OOOoohhh! Look at that!" and "Wow! See that?!" We got a kick out of all his cute little phrases and asked him all sorts of questions trying to get him to say more :). After that, we ate dinner and put the little ones to bed, but not before we left a plate of our creatively decorated cookies and a glass of milk for Santa. Then Josh and I had our own special Christmas Eve which involved watching the new Christmas Vacation movie while cuddling and drinking egg nog in front of our pretty Christmas tree :). It seriously was the best Christmas Eve and I didn't want it to end!

Looking through his recipe book for the cookie recipe!

Austin was so cute! He kept getting excited about the baking we were about to do and would suddenly give me a big hug and kiss! I loved every minute of it!

Stirring the ingredients.

Showing me his messy hands!

Licking the beaters clean :).

The best part of baking right here!

Using our new cookie cutters to cut out fun Christmas shapes!

This boy was in heaven!

Dad showing off his awesome cookie decorating skills!

After we drove around looking at the Christmas lights, Austin wanted to play with the Christmas village Great Grandma LaFeber made for Josh!

I love the beauty a child brings to Christmas. So innocent and so happy!

Christmas morning we had to wake Austin up because Dad, Eve, and I couldn't wait any longer to get to those presents! Austin was groggy but it didn't take him long to realize that Santa had come! This was Eve's first Christmas and we were actually impressed with her present opening skills! Austin helped us out with opening all of our presents as well as his own. Then we ate a yummy breakfast of pastries and egg nog :).

Checking out her stocking.

"Do I open it, or eat it?"

Merry First Christmas sweet baby Eve! You make my heart melt with your perfection!

Austin opening up his stocking presents.

He was very excited about all the candy!

Helping Mom open her gifts.

Eve helped Daddy out too! What good kids we have!

After the clean up, we got ready for our company to come over for Christmas lunch! Great Grandma and Grandpa Porter, Grandma and Grandpa Porter, Briana, and her boyfriend Trevor came over and we had a pretty good little party! Austin and Evie made out like bandits with toys. Our house was a sea of wrapping paper! Then we ate lots and lots of food and enjoyed talking and laughing. It was exhausting but so fun!

PRESENTS!!!

Grandpa Porter helping Eve with her big present!

Someone LOVES his Grandma!

Baby Eve's first baby doll!

Trying to figure out how to get the baby out of the box. It was actually really difficult!

And for the grand finale! Austin got his first bike! He was soooo excited about it and to this day calls it his Christmas bike :).

Great Grandma and Grandpa Porter are always there to support us at family parties. They are quiet, but we love them very much!

Oh how I LOVE my Mommy and sister! Sadie had to work on Christmas day :(.

The day after Christmas was the Cooley family Christmas party in St. George. Like all the previous parties, this one did not disappoint! Grandma Wiegel rented out the club house in her neighborhood and we had so much fun eating, dancing, playing games, and laughing very very hard. Austin was acting so shy the whole time and was super clingy to Grandma Porter. I think all the people and the noise level were a little overstimulating for him. Eve, however, basked in the attention and awed them all with her smiles and beauty. Very typical of them both! It's funny how you can have two kids who are polar opposites of each other. By the end of this party, we went home and it took us two days to recover from Christmas! Seriously, we couldn't have been more tired from all that fun!

Cousin Lara teaching baby Eve how to walk to Great Grandma Wiegel!

Cousins Cody, Kaden, and Austin getting their food on!

Cousins Jessica and Nathan goofing around with the camera.

The big family picture!

Eve never got her nap in so she fell asleep in my arms just in time for pictures....

Our smaller family photo. As always, Austin wasn't smiling.

A little girl time with Sadie and Aunt Heidi!

Sweet dreams sleepy baby.

Where there is Uncle Brian, there is karaoke!

Food, food, and more food! (Trevor, Briana, Jessica, Nathan, Gena, and Brian)

The fun table! (Josh, Ashly, Chandler, Dave, Heidi, Cody, and Kaden)

Aunt Amanda had plenty of potty training advice for me which I was more than willing to receive!

My sisters picture with Sadie since she couldn't be there for the one on Christmas day.

On Christmas day we took some family photos of just us before the whole gang showed up. I'm fairly proud of how well they turned out! Especially with how difficult it is to do it yourself when a baby and toddler are involved!