First Christmas

We celebrated Christmas a little differently this year. My sister was getting married just 4 days after Christmas in Utah, so we made the trek across the country once again with 4 kids. Since we were going to be doing so much traveling we gave the kids their gifts from us on the 22nd, before we left. It was a very early celebration, but it was really nice to have a smaller amount of gifts, and the kids didn't get tired of opening them.

Rigdon got to really try his hand at opening presents for the first time. He has grown up a lot in the 3 months since his birthday.
You can see Rigdon's new chair in the background. This was his homemade gift from Mom this year. Now all four kids have "matching" chairs - with all different fabrics.
Kendall made Avri a little Castle for her rats to sleep in. She was so excited to put it in their cage for them.
I made a drawstring backpack for Sadie to put all of her stuff in. There is never a time that I don't see Sadie with an arm full of things for her baby dolls.
For Talmage, Kendall made him a whole binder full of detailed Lego instructions. He has all sorts of things that he can make out of legos now. The duck on the table behind him is one of the examples.
The other things that the kids got were activities to keep them busy in the car all the way to and from Utah. My parents were able to come over and open gifts with us, and we got really lucky to have my brother in town as well! He had come out to get all set up with his new job with Caterpillar, so it was really fun to have him with us. Stay tuned for Christmas Parts 2 and 3.