Christmas in Chicago

My parents moved to the Chicago area in October of this past year. Yes thanks mom for moving to our City...you are just 5 months late since our city is Indy now! No, we are extremely happy they are there and so close to Steve and Kori's family, who they are blessed to spend time with. But since they were there we decided to travel back to Chicago for Christmas. Unfortunately Lynette's family couldn't make it since it is quite a trip from Idaho:-( We had a wonderful few days though, staying with my parents then spending the days at Steve's house. On Christmas Eve we had a super tasty dinner with a huge buffet of yummy appetizers then we got the kids all dressed up and Steve read the Christmas story from the Bible while the kids acted it out. Lorilyn couldn't stop talking about how she wanted to be a butterfly, so naturally she got to be an angel:-) Danny kept his shepherds hat on for all of about 45 second, but luckily a got a couple pictures snapped in time.

The littlest shepherd:-)

Getting ready to be the pretty angel...AKA butterfly:-)

Grandma got to hold the star

Ryan was the Angel letting Mary and Joseph know that she would be having Baby Jesus

They are in a serious discussion...


Lizzie made an adorable Elizabeth, the cousin of Mary and mother of John the Baptist


Lorilyn patiently watching and waiting for her turn.

Emma made a wonderful Mary with Carter as Joseph by her side

Grandpa and the wonderful missionary brother that was visiting for Christmas Eve also made 2 oh so very wise men:-)

Presenting the gifts to the babe...

Tada! We are finished!

After the nativity was done we all got to choose our favorite Christmas song for us all to sing while the talented Aunt Kori accompanied. This was LJ's FAVORITE part. She waved her arms in excited conducting the entire time and sang at the top of her lungs.

Danny observing the sights...hopefully he'll be a little more apt to participate next year:-)

Christmas morning came around 7am as Lorilyn awoke to find the presents Santa had left under the tree for she and Danny...

She was so excited and couldn't believe Santa made it in Grandma's house even without a chimney! Santa is one sneaky guy!

She is a little excited to see the balance bike Santa brought her:-)

Enjoying her spoils from Santa:-)

After Church we went back to Steve and Kori's to open the rest of the family gifts. We were very spoiled and got some wonderful things from everyone. It was so fun to watch Lorilyn begin to grasp the Christmas Spirit and not only be excited about Santa and presents but love talking about Baby Jesus and His birthday. Can't wait for next year for Danny to join in too! Thank you Chicago family for such a wonderful Christmas!