Zachary's Blessing Day

Little Mr. Zachary Scott Buchanan was blessed by Scott on December 27. It was really a good day. Zachary looked super cute in his little white outfit. He fell fast asleep right before going to be blessed so he was nice and quiet. Scott gave him a sweet and beautiful blessing just for him. We had two of Scott's brothers and all three of my brothers and our dads here with us to bless him. Perfect. Really, perfect.

After church we had everyone come to our house for lunch. I made Market Street Grill's clam chowder in bread bowls, a spinach pomegranate salad and shortbread for dessert. It was so nice to spend the afternoon together with our families. We really appreciate all of them being there. We love Zach and were happy to have a special day to celebrate him.

Happy Birthday Brielle!

December 25 was also Brielle's 4th birthday! Happy Birthday to our baby Brielle! She found balloons and streamers when she came down the stairs that morning. And got to blow out a candle on her cinnamon roll while we all sang to her. She is even wearing the leopard print leotard and tu tu that Grandma Sue sent her for her birthday. Sweet!She really is so lucky to have her birthday on Christmas. She spent a fun day with all of her family! She loved playing with her cousins all day! That evening at Grandma and Papa's we had a birthday celebration for her. She had a BEAUTIFUL pink sparkly princess cake and pink ice cream. The cake was delicious with rainbow chip on top and chocolate with Nutella on the bottom. We all sang to her, she got to blow out her candles and open presents. Perfect. She is now most certainly a four year old. Brielle went to her 4 year old doctor appointment yesterday and had to get 5 shots! She was not at all happy. She did well on hearing, seeing, jumping, etc. At 4 years old Brielle weighs 30.8 lbs. and is 39.5 inches tall. She is staying right in the 5th percentile for weight and the 50th percentile for height. Wouldn't we all like to be there?

She is cute and helpful and happy. She loves baby Zachary and plays with Ava all day long. She has made a lot of friends at preschool. That is really all she talks about are her friends. She is extremely social. She still loves to dress up and adores anything that is frilly, lacey, silky, fancy, sparkly, etc. We love Brie Brie!

Christmas Day

Christmas morning was so exciting. It is true that Christmas morning is even more fun when you are the parent watching your kids be so happy and excited than it ever was before. I loved it. The girls woke up and went directly down to see their present from Santa, to see if the cookies and carrots were eaten and to see all of the birthday decorations for Brie.

Brielle and Ava got a little play house tent from Santa with a sink, washer, stove and table. There is also a market tent for going to the store. They were very happy. Ava loved going in and out and playing house. Brielle used it as a Wonder Woman changing room. She would disappear inside and then burst out in a new outfit or no outfit at all. There was a lot of present unwrapping and it was done almost entirely by the girls. They got dolls, snap dogs (favorite), a jewelery box for Brie and books from Jessica. Oh, and a ring pop from their stockings. Santa also thought it would be fun to give them gum in their stockings because they don't get it much and it is SO EXCITING. Ava ate and swallowed about 3 feet of bubble tape all in that Christmas morning. Nice.
Scott REALLY surprised me with a laptop that I LOVE!!!! And Scott got surprise presents of his own.
We then had a breakfast of cinnamon rolls and lots of hot chocolate. We were lucky enough to have Uncle Evan and Aunt Jessica with us for Christmas. We were all happy to have them . . . especially Ava . . . she loves Evan, but is IN LOVE FOREVER with Jessica.The rest of Christmas day was spent at Fred and Rama's house with Brian and fam and Alan and fam. We love getting to spend Christmas with so much family. It is so fun for the cousins to all get together and play all day long with all the new toys. Ava throwing her special Christmas tantrum because she is desperate for a Christmas nap. Isn't she precious!
We had a very nice dinner of Chicken Cordon Bleu and each of us that was up all night the night before had a big huge Big Gulp of a caffeinated beverage to go with it! After dinner we opened all the nice presents from Grandma and Papa and from each other. I got the most wonderful present from my sister in law, Laura. She actually made costumes for the nativity for me. We used them that night to act out the nativity while Papa Fred read it. We will use them for many more Christmases to come.A wonderful Christmas!

Christmas Eve

On Christmas Eve, Scott worked so the girls and I went to see the lights at temple square and then to have dinner with Fred and Rama. It was a very nice evening. We came home and let the girls open their one present on Christmas Eve - matching, red, polka dot, silky nightgowns. Zach was, of course, in a velvet Santa suit.Brielle chose cookies and milk to put out on a plate for Santa. She also put some carrots out for the reindeer. There was a note all about how good she was and then they were off to bed. It was so fun for us to see how totally excited Brie and Ava were for Santa to come. Ava kept saying, "Hanta coming and bring Wava candy!"

Jessica arrived late (yeah!!) and then Evan arrived even later (yahoo!!) and then Santa arrived and this is what it looked like when we all went to bed. Scott and I were so excited for the next morning!

16. Ward Christmas Party. Our church Christmas party was for the adults only. It was so much fun. They had a dinner and a show. What we didn't know when we arrived was that WE were the show. They put us into groups, gave us a song, costumes, props and then we got to perform to our song. Scott went a little CRAZY! He was the lead singer to the Beach Boys "Little Saint Nick". It was a good time.

17. Shortbread. So we continued with our tradition of making and delivering Scottish shortbread. I spent 7 hours one Sunday afternoon and evening making shortbread for 36 people!!! Yep. It was a full 10 lb. bag of flour and 8 boxes of butter! I was tired of shortbread by the end and was reconsidering this little Christmas tradition of ours until I saw Scott dressed in his kilt and the girls running with him up to each door to deliver it. They loved delivering to their teachers and friends. I am back to really liking this as one of our family traditions at Christmas time.
18. Books. We read a lot of Christmas books. We found and were given a few new ones that quickly became favorites. There are some beautiful stories about Christmas. I loved getting to sit on the couch by the Christmas tree with the kiddos and read them stories (until they started pushing, shoving and fighting. Then it was off to bed.).

19. Brielle's Christmas Show. Brielle's little preschool had a Christmas party and a small performance by the kids. They sang a few songs with some props and were very funny to watch. I learned a lot about Brielle seeing her with her preschool group for the first time. She was hamming it up to make them all laugh. Great. She is her father. She sang "Rudolph the Red Nose Reindeer" in a high shriek. I thought it was awful, but the kids all seemed to like it.
20. Lights. Well, Scott did it. He ventured onto the roof in the freezing cold and put up Christmas lights on our house. I love it! They look so pretty. Now let's hope we are not one of those that leaves them up all year. It's just so cold to go take them down!On Christmas eve Scott had to work until 8pm so I took the girls downtown to Temple Square to see the lights there. It was FRIGID so we went through quickly, but still loved seeing them. Beautiful. We even found a piper piping Christmas carols. Perfect, although Ava kept yelling that he was too noisy.

11. The Nativity. Every year our Fisher Price nativity comes out and the girls play with it every day. They add all kinds of characters to it (mostly Disney princesses). I like that they have a nativity that they get to play with, touch, tell the story with, etc. We had a family night were we talked about each person in the nativity scene and who they were. Ava, taking a little pause from playing to work on some other business. Poor girl. She's struggling.
12. Christmas Crafts. We painted Popsicle sticks, then glued them together and bedazzled them to make a Christmas tree. Another craft was to paint a foot and hands to make Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer.13. The Forgotten Carols. My friend Jen and I went to see Michael Mclean's "The Forgotten Carols". Beautiful music and a fun night out with a friend. I'm glad I got to see this. 14. Christmas dresses at church. The past two Sundays have been wonderful. We've had beautiful choirs singing Christmas songs in church and I've been able to present a Christmas lesson to the children in Primary. Our kids wore their Christmas clothes to church on Sunday. Brielle, in particular, was absolutely thrilled with a long, puffy, shiny, fancy dress for church. Ava liked how her dress twirled and Zach just looked adorable (until he blew out all over THE FRONT of himself. How do you do that?).15. Movies and Music. Thank heaven for DVR. We have recorded every children's Christmas movie - the classics and the new ones. Brielle gets to watch a show in the afternoon while Ava is napping. Every day she gets to see one of the Christmas movies. Her favorite is "The Year Without a Santa". We also got a great music CD of Christmas music from Ava's Kindermusik teacher. We play it all day long. I love hearing Christmas music playing and the girls love dancing to it.