byeman family christmas

Cousin photo op!  Kinda tricky to get everyone looking at the camera, not giving cheesy smiles or picky their noses (Emily!)...this one was the best!  :)

 Playing together - FUN!

 Uncle Tom was Santa - - all the kids got Lego treasure boxes!

 The kids opening up all their stocking stuffers - - pretty cool that Santa goes to Oma's house!  Even the chap stick was wrapped!! 

Brooke opening up her present - a train ride/walk toy!  Yay!!

 VERY excited to open up his gift from Oma & Opa!

 It's not a Christmas without our chocolate letters!!

A new game to play!! :)

 Perfect gift for our drooling princess!

 Excited for his own sticker pad!

 More legos!!

 Jaelyn & Opa

Auntie Karen and the girls

christmas morning!

We woke up Christmas morning to the kids little feet running into our bedroom asking, "Did Santa come?  We didn't hear him while we were sleeping!"  They quickly ran downstairs and saw that their stockings were full and there were presents under the tree for them.  They were SO excited and couldn't believe their eyes!  If only I could have recorded what they were saying.  And, to top it off the cookies on the plate were gone & Santa had left them a note.  Jaelyn wondered where he had gotten the pen & paper! 

Brooke was still sleeping & we didn't want to wake her to do the stockings..however the kids plowed into theirs.  Nothing like being happy for new undies, your very own chap stick, gum, and box of lifesavers to name a few!!

After stockings were demolished, it was breakfast time!  We had a yummy egg/sausage dish, pineapple and orange juice!  By this time Brooke was awake and it was gonna be present time.  However, I felt a little bit like my dad...prolonging the excitement..because I took a shower and had the kids get ready for the day!  Ha!  They were good sports about it!

 Brooke's 1st Christmas! 

 Precious!  Love her!!

 Of course the kids were very excited to help out their sister unwrap her gifts...Brooke just wanted to eat it!

 Brooke's piggy bank!

 Pumped that he got a lego set to make lots of different cars/trucks!

It was a lego Christmas!!  Such fun!

garden d'lights

We bundled up everyone and made the trek to Bellevue Botanical Gardens to check out "Garden d'lights".  Boy...it's pretty spectacular!  They say they used roughly 500,000 lights! From butterflies & dragon flies (Jaelyn's favorite) to corn on the cob/tomato plants/grape vines (Mommies favorite), to dragons (Daddy & Ben's favorite)...it was all very cool to see.

 The dragon -complete with smoke coming out of it's mouth!

Simply amazing!!  :)

Seemed like there was a photo op at every turn!  Such cool stuff to look at!  What a fun night...complete with dinner at Chipotle.  Mmmmm!  :)

Santa!!

Look who visited us at our super cool Auntie Nancy's Christmas party?!?  Santa!  You should have seen the look on our faces when we heard "Ho, Ho, Ho" & heard his jingle bells ringing as he came down the stairs towards us!!  Priceless...wish I had a picture of that! 

 What do you want for Christmas, Jaelyn?  Gum!

 What do you want for Christmas, Benjamin?  A castle with dinosaurs!

 Who is this guy?!  Brooke's taking it all in!  :)

Santa made sure to remind the kids that they need to go to sleep on Christmas Eve so that he could deliver their presents!  Ben was so cute - - asked me if Santa's sleigh/reindeer was on the roof waiting for him while we sang songs together! :)  Pretty cool that Santa brought an early present for each kid...Mary Poppins DVD for Jaelyn, Cars 2 DVD for Ben, and a children's Bible for Brooke.

Sisters!!

Elf on the Shelf

We were visited by the Elf on the Shelf this year & we named him Scout!  What fun!!  He watches our every move and then reports back to Santa each night - - telling him if we've been good or bad!  When he returns to our house, he gets a new vantage point and we get to find his new hiding spot!  The one rule is that we can't touch him or else he'll lose his magic. 

We did take full advantage of Scout going back to Santa each night - - he delivered a few letters to him for us as well as some Christmas cookies!!  :) 

A couple mishaps - Scout fell out of the basketball hoop & landed on the floor (but he's a tough little elf and we were sure he was ok!).  Scout also didn't move locations a couple nights in a row...one b/c it was raining really hard outside & he didn't want to get wet and the other time was because he was sick (the kids were dealing w/ sore throats/colds at the time!).  All in all it was a fun Christmas season with the Elf visiting us...we hope he comes back next year!

christmas cookies!!

We had our annual Christmas cookie decorating extravaganza with the cousins & super aunties (aka - frosting/sprinkle eating/sugar-high kinda day!).  It was fun as always...and even a bit relaxing after the kids were done decorating and left the adults to finish up!

Elisabeth, Jaelyn, Emily, & Benjamin - what a crew!

 So proud of her cookie!

 Concentrating hard to get the whole cookie frosted!  Ha!

 The whole crew (minus Brooke who slept pretty much through the whole thing!)

 One of Ben's creations....don't ya just want to eat it?!  Not sure if you'll taste the cookie!

Some of the finished product!

"The Nativity" program

This year's program was the first time the kiddos had any sort of part in it (rather than just singing).  There were only 2 practices, so you can imagine how "smoothly" it went!  But it was super cute and fun to watch.  Jaelyn had a blast "performing" and reciting her 2 speaking parts...we'll have to get her in her school's play next year!

 Our Angel & Innkeeper!