There was something just incredibly magical and sweet about Christmas this year!!! I think a big part of that was being able to be with our newest addition to our family, Jack Logan White. ( He goes by Logan). He is such a sweet baby!! We are all so in love with him! My younger siblings definitely proved their ability to be great aunts and uncles. I am so excited for them to be able to help with little Claire Bear!!
Grandpa is totally in love with Logan! Logan likes him a lot too. My dad is the biggest softy for any baby. It is so sweet to see them play together!
Logan is OBSESSED with buttons! This is Grandpa showing him the buttons on his jacket.
Logan also loves anything electronic. He is such a boy!! Grandma knows how to make him happy :)
This is Scotty reuniting with Shadrach. They are both has such interesting creatures...haha
Ryan and Sophie were catching up on some sleep on Christmas Eve's day. I had to take a pick! When Ryan is home she follows him around like a puppy dog (pun intended) and when he is gone she puts up with following me around.
Ryan and Logan get along great too. Ryan's facial hair really intrigues Logan. The Native American gene passed down in my dad's family makes it impossible for any of the biological White males to grow too much body hair, so Logan and my younger siblings all find Ryan's thick facial hair very interesting.
This is Christmas Eve. Every Christmas Eve the Christmas story is read from the scriptures and we act out the nativity scene. Ryan and Scott got their matching Robes early so they could dress the part. (Notice Sophie right by Ry's feet? I think it's true love :)
I was the pregnant Mary. Ryan loves it when I wear my robe because it makes me look WAY more pregnant :) Ryan was Joseph, Austin and Levi wear the shepherds, Sophie was a sheep, Anna was the unpregnant Mary, Scott and Trina were the angels and Logan was the baby Jesus.
Oh, I forgot, Nick was the donkey!!
This was the Angel bringing fear to the shepherds.
This is Joseph and Mary after she lost all of her baby weight. The shepherds have come to visit. This is a tradition that I really enjoy and hope to carry it on to my kids. Some of the first memories I have is acting the nativity scene out with Scott as Joseph and Seth as baby Jesus and my dad as the donkey. I think traditions are just so fun!
Another tradition of ours is opening one present on Christmas Eve. Somehow that present always seems to be PJs!! We scored big with the PJ's this year! We all loved them so much!
Just showing some sisterly love :)
This is all the girls in our PJ's.
These are all the boys.
We added a new tradtion to our Christmas Eve. We found out that the closest gas station to us was giving out free hot cocoa on Christmas Eve. So after we all changed in to our PJ's, we piled into our 15 passenger van and got us some free hot cocoa!! What a blast. Dad called it a PJ party :) It think everyone at the gas station appreciated our clothes.
This is Anna, tanking up on hot cocoa.
This is Ry-guy posing in his posh robe and sweet PJ's.
Then when we got home we had another surprise....Mom had decided that we would change up with tradition and open all of our presents on Christmas Eve like they do in Brazil....Wow, we were shocked!! But we still enjoyed our presents!! This Sophie helping Ry open his present.
Anna was all smiles and giggles all night long. It is so fun to experience Christmas through little kids. It makes the whole season feel so much more alive.
Nick and his brand new sweater. I swear he is really happy.
Scott enjoying his presents.
It was so cute. Ever sense Trina was little she would get overwhelmed on Christmas with all of her presents. On top of tons of other things, this year she got what she expected...a new ipod, but then she got what she didn't expect...a new phone! She was so happy she actually started crying. It was really sweet.
Ry was pretty thrilled when he opened the presents I got him. I figured sense we are having a baby soon we should get a video camera. Then if we have a video camera we should get an external hard drive (he has been wanting one of those ever since we were married). I got him a 2 TB hard drive, which I guess means it is huge and of right now is almost impossible to fill up. He was pretty happy. He also got some sweet presents from my parents and his parents. In his own words, "This is just too much, I feel saturated with presents!" It was really fun.
This is Dad opening his Purdue tie. He went to Purdue for his graduate program and is pretty loyal to them. He was happy with our gift.I was pretty shocked with the present Ryan got me. I have been wanting one for such a long time but I never told Ryan because, he tends to spoil me and get me whatever he knows he wants. These things are super expensive so I never let him know... He got me a:
Jewelry armoire!!!! It is beautiful!!!!! It was so wonderful because I had no clue I was getting it and no clue that Ryan knew that I would want it AND it means if he got me such a huge jewelry box, he is planning on filling it, right :) I am a sucker for jewelry but my problem is I only like real gems, diamonds and gold...For every Christmas or Birthday Ry almost always gets me some beautiful piece of jewelry. This year he didn't he got me a place to put all of it!! He is the best :)
For Christmas we decided to get all the kids a joint present. This last summer the trampoline was on its last leg and fell apart. So we decided to buy the family a trampoline!!! The kids were really happy when they found out.
This picture is of Christmas morning. Sophie and Ryan were bonding over some sort of summer sausage treat.
Katrina is such a good sister and knew exactly what I have wanted all my life!! (or ever since I grew out of my lat pair) Footy PJ's!!! She is the best!! It was even better wearing them pregnant. haha
This is the side view. I am about 30 1/2 weeks pregnant in this pic.
This is Ry and his girls working on our present for Logan. He has a way with the women.
Logan LOVED his Christmas present!! We made him a fleece blanket and then sewed on huge buttons!! He was pretty thrilled!
He has a button in each hand!
Wow, it was a successful Christmas!! By about 5:00p.m. I found all three of the youngest kids asleep in random spots in the house. Austin (12 almost 13 years old) feel asleep watching Nick play Band Hero.
Levi (11 years old) fell asleep next to Logan's blanket...
And Anna (age 9 years old) fell asleep listening to her new i pod...Don't worry it is purple so it matches her whole outfit ;)
I just loved Christmas this year!! Ryan and I decided it ranked up in one of the top 5 Christmases of our lives!!! It wasn't because of the awesome presents (although we did enjoy that) I think it just had more to do with family, traditions old and new and appreciating it through the little kids eyes. I am already looking forward to next Christmas because it will be so much more special...We will have our little baby Claire!!!!!
