Bellagio

One of the things I wanted to do during break was to take the kids to the Bellagio and walk through the gardens. First off...how beautiful is the main lobby! I love the glass flowers!
Of course the place was packed but we were able to slowly walk around and see all the neat things.
The reindeer look like they are made out of some kind of a nut.

The polar bears were made of carnations.
Right around the corner is a HUGE chocolate fountain...
It starts at the ceiling and goes all the way down. It was pretty cool!
That's a lot of chocolate!
The water show wasn't going to be starting for another 3 hours so we missed out on that but had a nice time walking around.

Christmas 2010

After the kids went to bed-it was time for work to be done. We don't put any gifts under the tree until Christmas Eve, so we had a lot of unloading to do but I think it is a nicer surprise for them to see ALL the gifts in the morning....And they were excited to see the loot!
Oliver went STRAIGHT to his gift Santa brought him and wanted it down!!

He was entertained right away and really didn't care about other things.
We usually do stockings first and then eat breakfast and then do the rest of the gifts. I know-I am mean...at least this year I didn't make them shower and be ready for the day before even going out to see if Santa had come!
Eli is still young enough to get excited about the smallest things...

They each got a pillow pet.
Eli got a DSi XL from Santa.
From the grandparents the boys got a Lego table and Eli couldn't be more excited about it! The top flips to make a regular table too...and it has pockets to store all the little Lego pieces!
Santa brought Alexis a Nook Color Touch and she is enjoying it...
especially once we figure it all out!
It was a good, quiet Christmas. We hung out in our Jammie's all day and just played.
Hope you all had a Very Merry Christmas!!!!

Ready for Santa...

Hung out with family...CHECK(cousins doing Just Dance 2 on the Wii)
Putting out the reindeer food...CHECK


Preparing the milk and cookies...CHECK

Tracking Santa on NORAD...CHECK
A quick attempt of a picture in front of the tree...CHECK
(not we don't do Christmas PJ's on Christmas Eve)
Children all nestled and snug in their beds...CHECK!

Time for Santa to come!!!

HomeMade Ornaments

We have a Christmas Tradition of buying or making an ornament that represents our year. We honestly did NOTHING exciting in 2010. We went out of town for 3 days for a mission homecoming and that is just about it! This was going to be my ornament...Just an ornament hook! With NOTHING on it...to represent our BORING year!

But instead I saw these on this blog and knew I could pull that off!
I love they way they turned out!

CHRISTmas Program

Alexis and Eli had their school Christmas Program last night. Steve stayed home with Oliver so I was able to sit up front and have a great view.
A few pictures from before the show...
Eli and Orion (who's dad rides a motorcycle-I get to hear about it everyday!)Elle and Eli (they sit next to each other in class)
Alexis, Aubrey and Jillian
The Kindergartners played the bells and sang "I Heard the Bells on Christmas Day."
The 6th and 7th graders sang
"Winterwonder Land" and had a snowball fight
The carpool gang
Lex and Aubs

Nick part II

Yep...I'm pretty sure its the Whiskey!

Nick

It must have been a rough night for 'Nick" our Elf on a Shelf!
This is where we found him this morning!
Lets take a closer look...
A little closer...
I think he may have gotten into the stash of Whiskey (its for cooking people!!!) Because it was left out on the counter last night so I wonder....
Hopefully he will sleep it off today and be ready to report back to Santa tonight!