Our Last Weeks in Cali Part 2: Christmas

My favorite things about this picture:

1. Her ensemble. Nothing says "Merry Christmas" like a princess crown, a Halloween shirt, and a mermaid tail.

2. The purple tree. We didn't have room for our big tree, so we let the girls pick one out at Big Lots. Thus, we ended up with a purple tree.

Ivy's always up for a kiss. Always.

Every year our ward in California has a dinner in December where Santa shows up. The pic on the right is of Sophie. It's amazing how much she looks like Ivy in the other picture.

This year no one cried. I have to admit I was slightly disappointed. Drama makes better photos. Ivy was so tired. She probably wouldn't have cared whose lap she sat on.

We spent Christmas Eve and Day at the Perrys in Sacramento. Grandpa was teaching the girls how to make pigs in a blanket.

Grandma got the girls matching red skirts and we tried to get a pic of them.

Then we had to have one of the grandkids in front of the tree. Layla wasn't a happy camper.

The after-photo-shoot dancing.

Then a special visitor came. Grandpa Perry makes a pretty slick Santa.

The kids didn't recognize him. It was perfect.

I don't remember the last time I sat on Santa's lap.

Then we had to have ANOTHER one of the grandkids with Santa. Layla flipped out. She really didn't like Santa, which is funny, because she adores Steve's dad. We kept waiting for her to figure out who he was, but she never did.

Here are all the Perrys with Santa. It's a strange photo. Why the weird look on my face? I was watching Steve's cousin with my camera. I don't have live view, which means you have to put your eye on the camera itself to get the shot set up (old school, I know). She never did that. She just held the camera out in front of her, took a photo, saw it pop up on the screen, move it to the right/left, took another shot, readjusted, and so on -- never seeing what she was taking a picture of before she hit the shutter button. It was weird.

Christmas morning didn't disappoint. The girls got a trunk full of dress-up clothes, which they have worn almost every day since Christmas. (See this post - that was this afternoon.)

The guys got matching shirts and headlamps. I have to admit, I chuckled a little at the headlamps thinking, "such a guy thing". But I wore it the other night while I was looking for something packed away in the garage. It's super cool.