There's no place like home for the holidays...

This year after much changing of plans we ended up staying home for Christmas and it turned out to be a wonderful Christmas at home!  My brother Jordan and his family drove up to celebrate with us.  Our first item of business was to go downtown to see where Daddy works and to visit Santa of course.

Here are the two brave Daddies with all the kiddos standing in line to see Santa. 

This is the tree at the mall downtown.  It is beautiful and ginormous as you can see.

Baby Gracie was happy as a clam all bundled up in Mama's arms.

Beckett was so excited to be hanging out with Daddy that he didn't really mind the line.  We of course are all cheap so we weren't about to spend 20 dollars on a lame picture with Santa so the kids all just sat on his lap and told him what they wanted for Christmas.  They got a big candy cane too which made their day.  After Santa we went down to the children's museum to eat lunch but we didn't stay cause the babies were long overdue for naps.  

The next day we baked and delivered goodies to neighbors and even squeezed in some caroling!  Caroling was a big tradition in my family growing up but Garrett is not a huge fan so we haven't done it as a Hall family, but Jordan and I wanted to relive some Monson memories so we gathered the whole group and went caroling for old time sake.  The kids were great singers, and even Garrett was a good sport:)  That day the kids wrote letters to Santa too and they couldn't wait to see if he would write them back the next day.  

Well of course he did!  They were so excited to go to the mailbox and find a letter for each of them with a candy cane and a special letter inside.

After reading the letters they were very relieved to find out that they were each on the good list and would be receiving presents contrary to what the parents had been telling them each time they got into a fight:)

They are naughty but oh so dang cute!  They really did have so much fun together and we even got to celebrate with Ollie for the week!  Jordan and Danielle brought him because Abby was out of the country for Christmas.  I didn't tell my kids he was coming because I wanted it to be a surprise and it was so fun to see them freak out when he jumped out of their car.

On Christmas Eve we had our yearly Holy Land Dinner.  This year we decided to have the theme be on the three wisemen and specifically the meaning and importance of the three gifts they brought to Jesus.  We started out with the famous Challa bread, stew, and cucumber and tomato salad.  While we were eating we showed the kids the new wiseman video on the church website.  Then Danielle had the kids unwrap each of the presents that the wisemen brought.

They got to look at and touch the gold while Danielle explained the significance of the gold.  

Then Danielle brought some real Frankinsense for the kids to all smell.

Rylynn loved the smell as you can tell:)  We couldn't get ahold of Myrrh because it was really expensive but we printed out a picture of it for the kids to see.  It was so cool for them to learn the meaning behind each of the gifts.  Then we told the kids that in honor of the three wisemen, they would be getting three gifts this year.  We ended with the delicious pomegranite jello salad and bubbly.

Then the kids got to open their Christmas jammies.  Carter was sad because Skyler got spiderman jammies and he really wanted them.

Rylynn was so excited because her nightgown came with a matching tiny nightgown for her doll.  Beckett was thrilled with his elmo jammies too.

Carter got over his dissappointment pretty quickly luckily.  

Christmas morning came nice and early!  The kids love opening up their stockings before breakfast.

Santa brought some awesome stuff this year!!  Some movies...

A spiderman watch...

cool new lunchboxes...

And fun coloring books!

Then it was time for the grown ups favorite part, Christmas breakfast!!  We had the famous carmel apple pecan french toast, red potato and egg casserole, bacon, homemade candy cane hot cocoa, and orange juice.

After we stuffed ourselves silly we had to get back to business and open the presents.  I surprised Garrett and asked Jordan to pick out some new basketball shorts from the BYU bookstore.  He picked the perfect pair and Garrett was thrilled.

Beckett was all smiles about his new cars from "sissy"

This was by far Carter's favorite present of Christmas and it was from Grandma Ryan (Garrett's Mom).  It was a really cool airplane set that does all sorts of cool things and it comes with little pilot guys that look like they are from Star Wars which Carter loves at the moment.

Beckett got this cute little Cars book from Grandma with tiny cars to play with in the back.  He loved them!  

Then came the parade of Razors!  It was definintely a razor Christmas as Thais, Rylynn, Carter and Skyler all got their own new razor scooter.

Rylynn was so excited that hers was pink!

Carter got a Cars scooter!

Skyler was so excited about his tool set so he could be just like his Daddy.

After the two presents from Mom and Dad and the presents from Grandma and Grandpa the kids got to do their treasure hunts to find their big present from Santa.  Santa did a great job writing witty clues this year and the kids were so excited to see their big surprise!

The boys got a train table to share and they played with it from the minute they saw it.  There was really no reaction just immediate playing.  That's always a good sign!

Rylynn was thrilled that Santa got her exactly what she wanted...

A doll house with all the furniture and dolls to go with it!!  She and Thais spent hours playing dolls that morning.

Gracie loo who, as we like to call her, slept through most of the festivities but when she woke up she went right for the wrapping paper!  Nothing better than crinkly noisey paper for a little baby:) Rylynn couldn't get enough of Grace and held her any chance she could get.  If she was playing she would usually run over to her, give her a kiss, and say, "hello beautiful, beloved, Grace!" and then run back to playing.  She was so proud of that nickname she came up with. 

After the festivities died down, the parents all got to take naps while the kids played endlessly with their new toys.  Yay for 1:00 church!  Gracie wore her new fancy Christmas outfit to church and looked like a snow angel.  It was a beautiful meeting and I got to sing in the choir which is always a highlight of the season for me.  

After church it was right back to the kitchen to make the fabulous tri tip steak that was marinating for two days and was soooo delicious!  Jordan made some killer garlic mashed potatoes, and we had Christmas pomegranate salad, and bacon brussell spouts as well.  Then for dessert Danielle made her mom's famous English triffle.  It was amazing!!  

Oh and we can't forget the homemade egg nog!

Carter is sporting this beautiful stache which was a present to Garrett from our friends the Albrechts.  Basically it was love at first sight for Aric when Garrett wore a creepy mustache to a Christmas party last year so they thought it only appropriate to give Garrett the mustache collection as a gift this year.  I think Carter is wearing the casanova but I can't remember.  Yes, they all had names!

The rest of the week we ate yummy leftovers, watched movies, stayed up chatting till way too early, played in Ceour d'Alene, and just had fun.  This picture is to document the momentous day when my Christmas present saved the day!!  We all bundled up to go to the beach in ceour d'Alene and to play at the awesome wooden playground they have there.  So while we were playing Garrett had both my phone and his in his coat pockets and then he took the boys to go to the bathroom.  On his way back he was running and messing around with the boys and somehow dropped both phones on the ground.  When he got back I kept having this nagging feeling to ask him for my phone but I didn't.  So when we got in the car I immediately asked for my phone and he couldn't find it.  We were already driving away when I started to freak out because he couldn't find either of our phones.  So we turned around right away and I started saying a prayer that we could find them.  As soon as we pulled up to where we had parked I saw Danielle jump out of the car and run across the street to talk to some random guy.  Garrett had just given me a new bright red phone cover for Christmas and somehow Danielle noticed that this guy was walking down the street with a bright red phone in his hand!!  So she ran up to him and said that we had lost our phone and asked if that was his.  He looked at her and said, oh I just found this in the mud and handed it back.  Then he said, it's a good thing you guys came back when you did!  Then we asked him if he had seen Garrett's phone and he said no but we were all a little bit suspicious so Garrett and Jordan asked the guy to show them wear he found my phone.  So they walked back to the general area and out of the corner of his eye Garrett saw something shiny in the grass.  It was his phone face up in the dirt.  I still can't believe we found both phones!!!  I'm so thankful for those little whisperings of the spirit and the power of prayer in my life.  They have saved me from so many little and big disasters!  So Christmas was fabulous and we are sad to see it end, but my pants aren't sad to see all the holiday food go:)  On to losing the holiday pounds!!