A holly, jolly Christmas

Our Christmas celebrations started with decorating our Christmas tree.

Predictably, we had a tight grouping of ornaments where Calista and Craig put them on (and where they could reach).

I had to rearrange them slightly because they were causing the tree to tip over!

Before school let out for Christmas, both Craig and Calista had concerts. Calista sang a song with her kindergarten class called "Invierno," all about winter (en español). She actually sang it all by herself at the Rasmussen Family Christmas program, which was awesome. There are no pictures of her singing either time, though, because... there aren't. Mommy fail.
Craig had a concert at his preschool. I was expecting him to just stand with his class, not singing, because while he knows the songs (I've heard him singing them at home), he doesn't usually perform on command. I was mistaken, however. He totally did sing!

And I totally did get pictures of his concert! Poor, neglected middle child. Oh, wait...
Santa came to Craig's preschool, too, and Craig loved standing next to him.

We invited Craig to sit on Santa's lap, but Craig declined and we did not force the issue.

I did get pictures of Calista playing Mary at the ward Christmas party, though.

She did an excellent job caring for her baby, looking properly scandalized when he was slid across the stage to her at the time of birth.

After school let out, we started preparing to head down to Raymond for Christmas. Amidst these preparations, Calista's friend and neighbor came to our door, telling me Calista had hit her head on his front step and there was blood everywhere and I had to come now! So, I quickly put on my boots and headed a few houses down... Calista has sitting in their kitchen, screaming and holding paper towels to her head, with blood on her jacket and more blood-soaked paper towels on the table. After a quick glance at her wound, I picked her up and carried her home.

Thankfully, Kyler was home that day, so we decided he would take her to get stitches and I would stay with the boys and pack for our Christmas trip.

4 stitches (and 4 hours) later, Calista told me all about the massive freezing needle and that she got a green Popsicle.

The next day, stitches and all, we left to spend time with Kyler's family. While we were in town, we got to see lots of family, watch movies, eat yummy food, and do a quick temple session with sister-in-law Rachel and niece Ivory.

And have my camera borrowed by Scarlett.

We also did some more picture-filled things. One of the days, we took a walk to go out the lunch at the burger place.

Well, some of us walked. Others of us went in the sled or stroller.

We obviously had to take a break to climb a pile of snow.

Because the residential roads don't really get plowed, just knocked down a bit, there was plenty of snow to sled on just out in front of Grandma Maria's and Grandpa Ken's.

We took advantage more than once.

Christmas, the whole reason we went down, was lovely as well. Christmas Eve we headed to Karina's, and nearly everyone performed in the program. Calista sang "Invierno," as I mentioned before, telling everyone, "I'm singing a song called 'Winter,' but in Spanish, but no one here speaks Spanish except Grandma Maria, so..." and then she got really nervous and forgot the words and asked me what comes next. Uh, something about a cold nose? Thankfully, my shoddy English translation jogged her memory of the Spanish words and she sang her song successfully.
Many people sang, played piano, a little violin... and Kyler and I played a saxophone/piano duet! It went well, and most happily is over.

Grandma Maria bought all the grandchildren pj's, so we tried to get them all together for a picture.

It was difficult but amusing.
Christmas morning, the kiddos got to get into their stockings as soon as they woke up, but had to wait until after church to open presents.

Maria thought they would give us grief over that decision, but they did just fine.

After church, they changed out of their Christmas Sunday best, and back into pj's. Of course. And, they finally got to open their presents.

They loved it all.

The last thing we did before coming home (literally, right before we drove home) was go to a trampoline place and then out to dinner with the whole Rasmussen gang.

I personally didn't join in the jumping, instead holding a Caleb and attempting to take pictures.

Kyler did, though, doing some fun flips and successfully not hurting himself.

Calista and Craig loved running and jumping around with cousins,

and both got very red in the cheeks before we were done.

All in all, a happy and successful Christmas!