O Christmas Tree, O Christmas Tree

Last Sunday we attempted to get some pictures of Molly in her Christmas dress by the tree. The results were rather comical...

I hate using my flash in pictures (can you tell which one it was used in?), but I also have a really hard time getting enough light when taking indoor pictures without causing a lot of grain. Whichever ones we pick as our favorite will need some touching up :)

Breakfast with Santa

One of Bret's co-workers mentioned that they would be taking their one-year-old (just a week younger than Molly) to have breakfast with Santa at the nice hotel across from the hospital. They said it was a great way to get a picture with Santa without having to fight crowds or wait in line.

We decided to jump on the bandwagon! It wasn't even remotely crowded (maybe because we got there at 7:45 on a Saturday morning), it was cozy, we got to eat breakfast, and we could spend as much (or as little) time with Santa as we wanted. The only disappointment was that breakfast cost twice as much as advertised, and although good, wasn't great.

Here is how Molly felt about Santa Clause LAST year...

And here is how she felt about him THIS year...

Hope he doesn't bring her coal after that! Merry Christmas to Santa lovers and Santa haters alike!

Candy Houses

One of our favorite Richards Family Christmas traditions is constructing candy houses. Since we won't be home to participate this year, we decided to invite some friends to our house for some candy-house fun.

Needless to say, our resources were much more limited (we didn't have my mom going to the store with a list of 25 candies to buy... and holy cow, candy is expensive!) and our creativity and execution were a little relaxed, but we had a lot of fun cutting, gluing, planning, and decorating!

Charity

Lizzy & Isabell

Bret, Josh, Troy

We didn't get pictures of most of the completed houses because people had to leave before they finished

Troy's house kept getting taller and taller... and he wasn't sure what it was going to be. Finally he decided to put a man on top and call it "Samuel the Lamanite's wall". Nice. 

Somehow the small house Bret and I were working on turned into a stable and then into the Reindeer stable at the North Pole. We were pretty proud. And by the way, Bret (who claims not to have a creative bone in his body) was the mastermind behind the construction of the reindeer, the fence, the barn, and the sleigh. What did I do? Just decorate.  He's pretty awesome, that Bret!