Christmas in Flagstaff

I can't believe Christmas is already more than three weeks behind us! I better finish up this post . . .

Above: Lydia's "beautiful face"

Below: who knows? 

Jeremy took a whole week off over Christmas so we could enjoy a nice, long Flagstaff holiday with his family. His gracious parents put up with us and all our noise-making children for all those days (and nights)!

 Pa and Kezzie                                  Jeremy and Clara

We celebrated Pa's birthday on the 23rd and Elias' second birthday on the 24th. (Our kids loved Uncle James' homemade pizza! Lydia and Josiah ate piece after piece after piece. They also loved playing with E's toys.)

It's fun to see the cousins play!

Then on Christmas morning, everybody congregated at Pa and Grandma's for the big Christmas celebration. We emptied bulging stockings and took turns opening gifts, starting with the kids. It was such fun watching them marvel at the little gifts and treats in their stockings.

The wee cousins and their mamas

 Aunt Lauren and Abby

 Josiah was so excited about his stocking!

 Lydia sorting through her stocking loot

Aunt Anna got each of the kids a little stuffed Richard Scarry character: our kids got Sergeant Murphy (Josiah), Huckle Cat (Abby), Sally Cat (Lydia), and Hilda Hippo (Clara, but borrowed by her siblings). They love them--what a good stocking stuffer!

Abby

 Kezzie stuffed her mouth with some stocking candy!

 Uncle James

Josiah was interested in the contents of Kez's stocking

The kids' excitement over each gift--from tearing the wrapping paper or pulling out handfuls of tissue paper to oohing and aahing over the present to testing it out--was great fun to watch, too.

Uncle D's present to Josiah was a HUGE hit!

Abby

 Lydia

I Spy book from Uncle Justin and Aunt Anna!

The girls and Josiah loved the costume outfits Great-grandma and Great-grandpa sent. Josiah got a construction worker uniform (complete with vest, hard-hat, and tools), and the girls got butterfly wings and poofy tutus. Abby twirled around singing, "I'm a butterfly!" once she had got hers on. Josiah kept his tools close to him the entire time we were there, allowing the younger kids to use a hammer or wrench only with his supervision.

 Lydia

Lydia on left, Abby on right

Abby dancing and twirling

Contemplative Abby

Between reading the Christmas story, opening presents in stages, watching and helping the kids, and making and eating brunch, the morning wore away quickly!

 Great-grandma made Kezzie this adorable bunny hat!

 Abby liked Kezzie's new pig (it oinked)

 Matching Christmas girls! (A on left, L on right)

 How cute is Kez?!

 Elias contemplating his Christmas composition

 Clara and Uncle Justin

 The breakfast-cooking crew

Lydia is our hugging girl

E and his "dinos"

I'll have to finish posting about our time in Flagstaff later--we have lots of pictures of snow fun, sledding, the park, etc. that will take forever to upload and so just need to wait. Plus, this post is long enough.