Christmas Festivities

We had a fabulous Christmas.  Lots of things happened in just a few short days, so I've put together a list of the highlights.  Sorry this post is ridiculously long.  If the longness offends you, you are free to close your browser and flee from your computer.

Stollen
Robyn made Stollen this week.  Stollen is a traditional German bread that is filled with deliciousness.  Robyn's grandmother is from Germany, and when we were visiting her last Christmas, Robyn made sure to get Stollen lessons so that she could learn the art.  She did it this year without any assistance, and I was very impressed due to the deliciousness of the final product.

Looking cute while she works.

Forming the dough.

Selfie with the final product.

Breakfast with Megan and Graham and Grahams
On Christmas Eve we went over to Megan and Graham's (Robyn's sister and her husband) place to have breakfast.  We did the traditional (for the Wrights) crepe breakfast and it was really good.  Robyn's other sister was there with her 1 year old twins.  Here are a few pictures from that morning.

Will was getting sick, so Megan let him entertain himself with the ipad.  He kept sneezing on it.  It was simultaneously adorable and disgusting.

Robyn likes babies.

He kept trying to crawl over the box.  Around it would have been way easier.

Doing a little dance number.

Snapchat
Last year we started a tradition of sending Snapchat pictures of each other (and especially of Graham).  I promised my niece we would continue the tradition, even though she was in California and we were not.

The first snapchat is away!

However, I quickly realized that Robyn's sister and her husband have the last name of Graham, so we could also snapchat pictures of them.

Teance didn't disappoint.  She may not have had any Grahams to snapchat, but she shared the love with plenty of selfies.

My brother Justin even got in on it.

Robyn made sure to send snapchats mocking me.

Christmas Morning
Christmas morning I woke up early and couldn't go back to sleep.  Normally, Robyn is an early riser on Christmas.  It's the one day of the year that she doesn't want to sleep in, but I had to wake her up.  We exchanged presents at our house and then went outside to shovel the white Christmas off of our driveway before heading to my parent's house to have even more Christmas there.

I put a tiara in Robyn's stocking.  I thought she'd think it was fun and cute.  She was so excited, and screamed, "I get to be a PRINCESS!"  I wasn't expecting that much excitement.

I was surprised to see how big Christmas was at my parent's house.

Zack got lots of ties. 

Justin really liked the beanie he got.  It was made even better by combining it with Robyn's tiara.

All the boys got dinosaur hats.  I think I need to work on my dinosaur impression.

Olive wanted to be a dinosaur as well.  

Near the end of the day, Robyn revealed her secret identity as Elsa.

It was a great Christmas!  I'm just sad it's over.  Maybe we should do it again this week.

My little helper!

Here is how Jeff helps me clean the house before we have company come over.  We had a tower of boxes that needed to be broken down before we put them in the recycling because we have ordered way too much stuff on Amazon recently.  He is such a good helper!

Muppets and Temple Square

This past weekend we had the opportunity to attend the Mormon Tabernacle Choir Christmas Concert.  We try to attend every year, but we don't always pull it off.  There are so many people that want to attend that they do a random drawing type system, so some years we're able to get tickets and some years we aren't.  This year I really wanted to go because they had the Sesame Street Muppets as special guests.  How cool is that?

We decided to go up early and eat dinner at City Creek followed by walking around Temple Square to enjoy the Christmas lights.

Temple Square was beautiful as always.  We made sure to take some pictures.

Selfies are always important.

I'm pretty sure we take this exact same picture every year.

After Temple square we headed over to the Conference Center where we met Megan and Graham.  There were more selfies to be had while we waited for the show to start.

I'm pretty sure Graham looks exactly like a Muppet. I'm just a Muppet of a man.

Robyn and Megan wanted a discreet picture of the photobomber.

I really enjoyed the concert.  The Muppets were super fun.  But I have bad news.  The puppeteers came out with Muppets on their arms.  It turns out the Muppets are puppets.   I know, I'm as disappointed as you.  My entire childhood was a sham.  But the good news is that Big Bird is real.  He was walking around without any sort of hand inside him.  He's an actual bird.  So you can take solace in knowing that at least he is real.

Also, they had a sing-along with the audience.  I actually sang with the Muppets.  So you might say I'm kind of a big deal.

Afterward, naturally we took more selfies.

This is our selfie with the choir.  They're all walking away, because they hate to pose for pictures.

This was in the Joseph Smith Memorial Building.  Don't we just look festive?

We wandered around afterward in search of someplace that would give us hot chocolate.  The Nauvoo Cafe was open, but the lines were thousands of miles long.  We went to the food court at City Creek but everyone there hates money, so they were all closed.

Ultimately, we failed at obtaining hot chocolate, but we succeeded at singing with the Muppets so I would say the night was a success.

Turning 33 on the 3rd!

Well it happened again.  I had a birthday.  I love my birthday.  My family has always tried to make me feel so special on my birthday.  This year was no different.

It all started on the Sunday before my birthday,  We flew in from Washington that afternoon and then drove straight to Jeff's parent's house for family dinner.  Jeff's mom always makes a special birthday dinner for each person's birthday.  She made me chicken and potatoes and had an apple pie for dessert.  Then his generous family gave me a bunch of presents.  Jeff's family is so sweet.

Next, was my actual birthday on Wednesday December 3rd.  My Nike Fuel Band was the first one to wish me a happy birthday.  The first time I tapped it to see what time it was it said happy birthday! How cool is that?

At work my principal put a sign and a balloon on my door.  The kids and teachers wished me a happy birthday all day long.  My sister also brought me lunch and I got to hang out with her and her two cute little boys.

After work I came home and face timed with most of my family.  My mom sent me a beautiful and really warm sweater.  I then gave myself a manicure and treated myself to relaxation before Jeff got home.

Jeff ordered in Chinese food and brought me flowers and ice cream sandwiches.  How sweet is he?!  The rest of the night was quiet and relaxing.  Just what I wanted for my birthday.

The great news is that it isn't even over yet!  Tomorrow I will be going over to my brother's house to celebrate again!  My sister-in-law has a brother (who is a good friend of mine too) and his birthday is exactly a week after mine so we will be celebrating both birthdays.

I think that families make birthdays the best!  Here is to another year full of adventure!