Early Christmas in Alaska

Tired of waiting on us to open presents...
Ready to go...

opening a present earlier in the day while visiting with Michelle and Cody

The Christmas tree and all the presents!

The best present ever!

Opening her stalking

Opening presents

Soooo Excited! (she saw a shipping box and was so excited that she was getting a mail box)

Taking off every bit of wrapping paper

Kyla's new puppy dog

Lots of Lipstick!

Opening her new doll bed

So happy!

Opening hew doll highchair and swing from Grandma

Ready to play babies!

Fancy new Tutu!

Kyla's new stuffed animal from Grandma and Papa

Kyla's Tinkerbell movies and Tinkerbell bracelet

Looking for more presents

Kyla's first Jewlery box

opening more presents

...and more presents

Lots of new games

Daddy's new Fishing Pole


Kyla, Jon and I went to my parents house on the Saturday before Christmas to celebrate Christmas early before heading to Seattle. We had a crab dinner and opened tons of presents! We gave the majority of the presents that we got for Kyla to her eatly so that we were not taking so much on our trip. Kyla was so excited to open presents this year, and very quick too! She would hurry and grab a present and rip every last piece of paper on it and throw the paper and then throw the present and would move on to the next one. She ended up unwrapping all of her presents fairly quickly and then once they were all unwrapped had fun playing with all her new toys.

Jon and I bought Kyla two stuffed animal kittens, several board games and card games, a few puzzles, lots of art supplies (finger paints, water colors, colored pencils, papers and stickers), clothes, pajamas, a Disneyland piggy back, jewelry, all three Tinkerbell movies, jewelry, a princess stool and many other little things. From Grandma and Grandpa Kyla received clothes, a baby doll, a doll bed and high chair, blankets, pillows and bibs for her dolls, a princess flashlight and lots and lots of lipstick, a princess toiletry set, a jewelry box, a Christmas movie and more. From Ethan and Ella Kyla was given a camera! Jon was just as excited as Kyla.

Kyla also got a stuffed animal puppy from Uncle Paul and Aunt Diana, Clothes, a book, a snow globe and a princess art set from Aunt Lynn and her family.

Kyla came home with a ton of new stuff and then we left the next day for vacation. She will be happy to return home from vacation to so many new toys at home. We had a really fun early Christmas night and although we will miss my family for Christmas we are very excited to go to Seattle to spend Christmas with Jon's family!

Decorating Grandma's Tree

Kyla, Jon and I went over to help my mom decorate her Christmas tree. Kyla loved how big the tree was and all the colorful lights. My mom has a ton of decorations and Kyla had a good time looking through them and putting them on the tree with Grandma.

Colony Christmas and April's Bridal Shower

Kyla and Santa!

Yeah, We got a Santa picture this year!!!

Kyla and Vixen on a Sleigh Ride

Kyla loved visitng Santa's Reindeer

Kyla really liked petting Cupid, she said he was really soft


April and Grandma Elsie holding hands in her new gloves made for couples

April opening the presents we got her

A new tent!

The Bride to be April

Snowman Float at the Parade of Lights

Giant Wagon with presents

Kyla waiting for more candy at the Parade


Kyla and I had a great day in Palmer on Saturday! We started out the day with a visit to Santa at the Colonial Christmas Festival, and Kyla actually sat on his lap this year!!! Last year she was so upset kicking and screaming that we could not even get a picture at all on Santa's lap. We have talked about Santa a lot and talked about sitting on his lap and telling him what she would like for Christmas and she has been on and off on whether she really wanted to go see him or not, but it was succesful! Kyla sat on his lap and told him that she would like a girl game for Christmas and she got a canfy cane. Santa really liked her shirt that read
"Dear Santa, I want...a kitty, a dollhouse, a tu-tu, a purse!" I was wishing that I had put her in one of her cute Christmas dresses, but I really did not expect her to actually sit on Santa's lap. We will be visiting Santa again in Seattle with all of her cousins, so I have another chance to get a Santa picture with her dressed up.

After visiting Santa we went outside to see his Reindeer. Cupid, Vixon and Prancer were all outside for us to see and pet. Kyla loved petting the Reindeer, she ran right up and started Cupid right away and then we waited in line to pet and feed the others. It was so much fun to get to take her to see Santa and his Reindeer.

Afterwards we went over to my cousin April's Bridal shower which was also in Palmer. We had a great time visitng with everybody and watching her open all of her gifts. We are very excited for her wedding next month. Kyla did very good at the Bridal Shower without taking a nap. We stayed at their house for awhile afterwards and then went with them back to the Colonial Christmas Festival to see the Parade.

Kyla really enjoyed the parade and there were some very cute floats. The Parade was a Parade of Lights and there were floats decorated with Nativity Scenes, As Rudolph, Santa and much more. We planned to stay for Fireworks too, but at 5:30 Kyla was falling asleep so we headed home. I was glad that this festival was on the same day as April's shower because we would not have driven out there for just the Christmas Festival, but now that we went we will definitly go back again. Kyla had so much fun all day and said "I love Palmer".

Kyla's First Gingerbread House

Kyla made her first ever Gingerbread House with Grandma today. The Gingerbread house was already assembled and Grandma did the frosting, so Kyla just got to do the fun part and decorate it with candies. Kyla really liked decorating it and did a good job putting the candies where we showed her. The Gingerbread house turned out really cute and Kyla really had a good time with it!

Kyla's Elf

Kyla got an early Christmas present from Santa

Kyla's first time finding her elf

Kyla and her Elf "Jingle Jill" in matching Tutu's

Jingle Jill

Our beautiful little Princess!




Kyla recieved a special delivery from Santa today, she had a present under the tree that she was able to open early. It was the "ELF on the Shelf" and she was so excited. Daddy read her the book and she remembered everything about the elf. She went in search of her very own elf and found it playing with her kitchen in the bedroom. Kyla wanted to make sure that the elf was a girl so we made a pretty little Christmas tutu and a necklace with a bell and left them next to the elf before we went to bed. In the morning her elf was back wearing her pretty little tutu that matched the one I made for Kyla. The first and last think Kyla talks about each day is her elf. In the morning she is excited to find where her elf is hiding and when she lays in bed at night she asks if her elf has "flown away to the Northing Pole".

Kyla named her elf Jingle Jill, a combination of Jack and Jill and Jingle Bell since those were the two names she had came up with. Kyla loves the idea of looking for her elf each day and keeps talking about how the elf flies over our house to the North Pole with Santa at night time. She knows that it is not a toy and that it will lose it's magic if she plays with it. It is a fun little Christmas tradition that we were introduced to through both Jon's sister and brother and my sister and I decided to introduce our kids to the "Elf on the Shelf" this year too.

Baking Christmas Cookies

Kyla and I had a fun day baking Christmas sugar cookies. She is quite the little helper and helped me with every step of the cookies. It was her idea to bake cookies and she went and got a chair and moved it over to the counter to help. Kyla ended up doing most of the mixing and pouring of ingredients. Kyla also helped with rolling the dough, cutting out Christmas shapes and most of all decorating! She ended up using three entire containers of sprinkles on one batch of sugar cookies. We had quite a mess in the kitchen, with flour, frosting and sprinkles everywhere, but it was well worth the mess. It was a lot of fun making cookies with her, she loves to be in the kitchen and loves to help make everything.

Christmas Tree

We had a great time decorating our Christmas tree this year. We had the decorations scattered all over the floor and Kyla was decorating the tree as fast as she could. By the time we were done there were probably four times as many decorations on the bottom of the tree where she was decorating than on the top. It was fun getting our decorations out because we had not seen them in three years. We moved them up to Alaska before we made the move, so we did not have them our last Christmas in Utah. And then last year we were at my parents and kept them in storage. We were lucky that not too many of our decorations broke during the move. While unpacking decorations I found a Christmas Card in with them and was thinking that would be funny if there was money in this. I looked inside the envelope and sure enough there was a $100 visa gift card in it from Brian and Mary last Christmas, and thankfully it was not expired!

For the first time ever we got a artificial tree this year. Since we are going to Seattle for Christmas are options were going to be to either take our tree down a week before Christmas, not have a tree or get a fake tree, so we decided on an artificial tree. Kyla obviously does not know the difference and just loves having a Christmas tree to look at. Next week we will go over and help Grandma and Papa decorate their tree too.