Merry Christmas!

This was our fourth (and final!) year spending Christmas in Ohio. It's been very fun to continue old traditions from our extended families as well as create new ones of our own. As always, we started things off with a yummy Christmas Eve breakfast at Cracker Barrel.Bryan and Andrew
Hannah
Logan and Summer
Hannah and Summer in the Cracker Barrel store.
That night, we all gathered around the Christmas tree in our new jammies (thanks, Nana and Papa) to read Christmas books and the Christmas story from the Bible.

Hannah entertained herself while we read.
After leaving milk and cookies for Santa, we went out on the lawn to leave magic food for the reindeer.
I think this may have been the first year in Ohio that we had some snow for our reindeer feeding tradition.
It was so comical to watch each child with their unique method of spreading their bag of food. Andrew just turned his bag upside-down and shook it out, Hannah threw it by the handful as hard as she could, and Logan crouched down close to the ground and very carefully sprinkled little bits of food in deliberate places all over the front yard. I even heard him whisper, "Here, reindeers! Come and get your food, reindeers!"Christmas Morning!!! (Don't they look excited?) The boys kindly slept in till 8:00 and we had to wake Hannah up.
Someone just woke up!
Andrew opening his microscope set from Nana and Papa.
Santa brought remote control cars for both Andrew and Logan.Hannah loved playing Mommy to her baby Snow White doll from Nana and Papa.A wireless Internet router for Bryan!
We were so spoiled again this year! In addition to the Netbook that Bryan and I gave each other, I also got a beautiful picture of the Salt Lake Temple from Brooke and Kody, a red wool peacoat from my mom and dad...
...and an awesome watercolor illustration of our family from our talented friends, the Tugeaus. Don't you just love it?!!
Hannah with her Christmas loot.
Logan's presents
Andrew...nice. (And in case you were all wondering, YES, he did get his alarm clock that he asked Santa for. Good thing.)
Just when the kids thought we were all done, Bryan pulled out one more present. It was a battery from Grandma and Grandpa Anderson that went to their new...
DODGE VIPER POWERWHEELS!!! Wow! Thank you so much, Grandma and Grandpa!

There goes the Lego table! Everyone better stay off the sidewalks!

Diaper Cake

Last week, I made a diaper cake for my friend, Lana, who recently had a baby. I had heard about diaper cakes before, but had never actually seen one until my Mom made one for my sister-in-law this summer. Hers turned out OH SO CUTE, so I wanted to give it a try too.

This was so fun to make! Here is my naked three-tiered cake made with a bag of size 2 diapers and a whole bunch of rubber bands. That's a bottle brush holding the top two layers together.

I kept mine pretty simple, with just receiving blankets to cover the layers and a stuffed froggy as a topper, but you could get as fancy as you like with all sorts of baby items to decorate your faux confection.

On my SIL's cake, my mom went all out with baby spoons, shoes, binkies, hairbows, socks, bottles, teethers, and toys.

You can see my mom's detailed diaper cake-making instructions with pictures on The Thompson Family Tree.