Santa spoiled us!

We woke up Christmas morning to find that Santa came!  We all must have been good because our stockings were overflowing with gifts!  The kids were excited (to say the least) and went from gift to gift, laughing and showing each other what they got.

Even Coulee had a treat in her stocking! 

After our family time at home we packed up gifts and headed over to Mandy and Jon's house where they served us breakfast and mimosas.  YUM!  Then on to more gifts...

They received so many great gifts.  He are just a few of the favorites:

Rylee- an Elsa scooter (which she literally hasn't stopped riding since she opened it), a Frozen helmet, and cute Toms shoes (which she says matches Aunties.)

Carson- a race track for his cars, a Thomas train track, and a cool superhero cape.

After gifts we spent the rest of the day just hanging out.  We went for a walk (to try out the new scooter), played Jon and Mandy's new holy balls game, watched Elf, and opened and played with all the new toys.  Nice and relaxing.

Mom made her annual Prime rib and crab dinner.  DELICIOUS!!!  The best meal we've had all year.

Let's not forget Papa's birthday!  Carson helped him open a few gifts and told him happy birthday numerous times throughout the day.  Doesn't get better than that!

Merry Christmas Eve!

We hosted the annual Christmas Eve party this year and once again, it was a success!  There was a bigger turn out then last year, which was a lot of fun.  The only people missing were Rick and Janice.  They have a new puppy and can't leave him alone quite yet.  We've been getting together with this group of people for Christmas Eve since I was a kid, and it is such a wonderful tradition.  They really are like family.  It was an evening of fun, laughter, dancing, good food and drinks, and good cheer.  =)

Merry Christmas from the Craig's!

Holiday fun

 Last year Carson was afraid of Santa, this year that was definitely not the case.  He ran right up to Santa and snuggled in.  It was pretty cute.

 Rylee wasn't feeling well so she wasn't thrilled about sitting on Santa's lap.  She did it for the candy cane I think.

 Rylee loved decorating the gingerbread house.  Carson loved eating as much of the candy as he could!

 Rylee and I went to see her friend Savannah perform in the Nutcracker this weekend.  It was a great show!  I think Rylee enjoyed watching the young dancers, and especially looking for Savannah.

 Of course we had to have our annual cookie baking night!  Jon, Mandy and mom came over and we made candy cane cookies, snowballs, magic bars, and the kids decorated sugar cookies.  Some wine may have been drank also.  We used a wine bottle as our rolling pin and had to drink some afterward! =)

 Carson's favorite part was tasting all the cookies!  (Am I sensing a theme here?)

We also had to help Grandma decorate the tree at the beach house... another tradition!  The kids love hanging all the nautical and beachy ornaments. 

 Now we are officially ready for Christmas!!!

Great Wolf Lodge!

Last weekend was a fun one.  We spent Friday and Saturday at Great Wolf Lodge with the Bend Craig's.  It was our first time there... and I can say that we'll definitely be back!  The hotel was all decked out with Christmas decorations.  Santa and Mrs. Claus were there, and it even snowed inside at night!  So fun.

I didn't get many pictures of us at the water park because it was wet and well, we were too busy playing!  The park was great.  Rylee could go on all but one water slide.  She had a blast and was very brave.  She loved all the slides.  Carson could only go on a couple slides.... and surprisingly he didn't care for them.  He liked swimming in the wave pool and playing on the little jet skis.

Can't wait for our next visit!

Happy Turkey Day 2014

We are thankful for family this holiday season.

We got together with family on Friday to have Thanksgiving dinner at Uncle Stuart's house.  It was delicious as usual and fun to catch up with family we hadn't seen in a while.  After dinner a few of us went to the Bellevue Botanical Gardens to check out the lights.  The cousins had an absolute blast playing together.