Christmas 2013

We spent Christmas at my parent's house. The whole family was there! It was a lot of fun to spend so much time with everyone. We had fun watching Cordin and Doran play.

Christmas Eve, we opened presents from each other and the babies opened Christmas pajamas. Doran gave Cordin Gymboree bubbles, which are the coolest indoor bubbles ever. If you have little ones, you should buy them.

Doran and Cordin were frequently the center of attention. Can you tell which feet are mine?

As kids, my family had a tradition (or rule, which Matt ALWAYS broke) that we couldn't leave the stairs until Mom and Dad woke up. We still sit on the stairs and wait for Mom and Dad. This is our little family on the stairs. So lovely looking in the mornings. And the picture to the right is our view of the Christmas tree from the stairs.

I tried to take a few pictures of Doran in front of the Christmas tree, but all those "pins" I read about how to take a picture of your kid in front of the Christmas tree didn't work.

Opening presents! Doran was interested half of the time. He really liked a present Cordin got, it had buttons and made sounds. He, of course, loved the paper, boxes, and bows.

And we ate lots of good food. Every kid took a night being in charge of dinner. Doran loves food!

And we played fun games!

It was a great Christmas with family!

Then we hurried home and I did the biggest wedding of my career! I had mastitis during the whole thing and Doran had a reaction to the chicken pox shots. It was a long weekend, but the wedding turned out beautiful! You can see pictures here:

Doran's Birthday Party

Doran woke up from his nap to a decorated apartment, balloons, Grandma, Grandpa, and Uncle Stephen. (and Devin and I, of course)

 Yay!

The Birthday Spread

Doran's Cake

Opening presents.

Out of all the presents he got, Doran was most excited about his new clothes...

 ...especially his new SHOES!

 He tried to put them on right away!

Showing them off. 

New jacket. This picture just makes me laugh.

If you know Doran, you know that he LOVES to play peek-a-boo! When my parents saw peek-a-boo Elmo, they knew that would be a perfect present for him! But, he was a little scared of it the first few times.

He likes Elmo now, just took a while for him to warm up.

Doran probably would have been just fine if all we got him was this balloon.

And, of course, we had birthday cake!

All caked out. 

Festival of the Nativities

We went to the Festival of the Nativities in Bellevue this year. It was great way to feel the true Christmas spirit. They had hundreds of Nativities from all over the world!

There was a room the depicted scenes from the Savior's life. This was a really neat room!

This is one of our favorite nativities, made out of recycled pop cans! It is from Zimbabwe.

Garden d'lights at Bellevue Botanical Garden

On of the things on our Christmas to-do list was to see the Garden d'lights in Bellevue. We have heard so much about it, but haven't gone until this year. I have to admit, it wasn't as cool as I was expecting (I think our expectations were too high), but it is pretty amazing what they did with the lights. Here are some of our favorites.