Christmas Eve

Christmas Eve was really fun for us this year!  Grandma, Grandpa, Uncle David and Aunt Linnea all came over for a little roast, cookies and a game of uno!  We visited and played an insanely long game of Uno, then the kids got to unwrap their Christmas pjs.  The girls, at least, should be able to wear theirs through next Christmas - I may have over-sized them.

After our couple of visitors left, we read the Luke Christmas story and sent the kids to bed.  They went down very well, I guess with the excitement and fear that they might miss out if they stayed up.

I snuck downstairs just after a jolly old elf visited and saw that Santa had been very kind.  All the kids got something they wanted while still keeping Mom and Dad's life here simple.

Evie got a new book/game for her vreader.

Lizzie got a new pony - she's very into My Little Pony right now.

Carson got a train.  Oh, how he loves trains!  This one also has a remote, but batteries wore out really fast.  He doesn't care, though; he loves his train!

All three of them also got a small doodle board, which got put into their Sacrament meeting bags.  Stockings were pretty simple, too, with fruit and candy as well as chapsticks, socks, a small toy each, and toothbrushes. 

Santa couldn't finish, but tried very hard.

Christmas Day

I was sadly lacking in photos of Christmas Day, but I did manage to get a shot of each of the kids playing with their 'Santa' gifts.

Also, here's Evie with her press-on nails from her stocking.  These lasted about 10 minutes for her, and Lizzie, who got similar nails, let hers stay on a whopping 3 minutes.  Great cheap gift that I didn't have to see again after Christmas day!

And this covers nearly everyone doing something.  Evie's putting together one of two puzzles she received.  Lizzie and Carson are thoroughly engrossed in their new 'Little Einstiens' video and Aaron (on the couch) is studying diagrams and videos to remind himself how to solve a rubiks' cube.

We played with all our new things for a couple hours, enjoyed an easy breakfast from our stockings of cocoa and personal choice sugary cereals.  Then we got ready for our last week of 1pm church.  The kids were excited to go and take their new Sacrament Meeting bags, which my mom made and filled for them.  Each bag has a book of mormon, a gospel ABCs book, temple and prophet booklets, and, for the girls, hankies, and for Carson, a book about Jonah.  I added a few coloring pages and an Altoid tin of crayons for each of them.  Since church was a simple Sacrament meeting filled with small talks and lots of Christmas music, it went pretty quickly.

After that, we headed home to nap before heading to Grandma and Grandpa's.  We gathered up some food items and gifts for those we'd be seeing and got ourselves out the door!  Grandma and Grandpa had waited patiently until after Church to open any gifts, and we walked in to a rush of, "Let's hurry and open presents now that we're all here!"  It was fun to see the gifts we gave get opened and the kids loved the things they recieved.  Their 'big' gift from their grandparents was a beanbag each.  Now they can lounge in confort to watch tv, read, or play quiet games!  (Or jump from each beanbag to the next...their not-so-quiet game.)  Our big gift from them was a TV - Aaron's been wanting a new one for a couple years now.  He loves it!

(This picture was taken well after Christmas, but you can see how we all love those gifts!)

After the gifts were all opened and at least catagorized into family piles, we visited, ate an easy dinner of ham, rolls and baked potato bar with a couple small sides.  It was such a nice time to just enjoy one another's company!  We loved our Christmas and hope all our loved ones also had a wonderful day!



Cookies to Share

A week before Christmas, the kids and I decorated some cookies.  The girls understood pretty quickly that we were to be sharing these with neighbors and friends.

Carson, however, took matters into his own hands.

After a bit of decorating, we donned our coats and gloves and hats and quickly visited our three nearest neighbors.  At each door, we sang "Jingle Bells" and handed them a plate of goodies.  They had the decorated cookies, candy canes, kisses, and a couple small treats I'd made earlier in the week.

It was fun for me to be able to help them start one of my favorite childhood/youth traditions.  I loved going out with my family - sometimes we had plates of treats and sometimes we just had a mug of assorted candy canes, but we always went caroling to friends around the neighborhood.  Something was just wonderfully memorable about huddling together, harmonizing our favorite Christmas songs and loving doing it together.  Not to mention the steaming cocoa fixed quickly after our return home.  My kids liked that part, too!

This Week

Almost a week ago was my birthday and we celebrated for several days!  On the day, I got to open cute socks and a bobbin winder (super needed!!) and heard some of my family sing to me.  Aaron made a cake and let the kids lick the bowl.  The totally loved that!

On Sunday Aaron's family came over for dinner, cake and presents for me.  It was nice since a couple family members hadn't been to our house yet AND it was clean. :)  I got a couple kid-friendly table cloths, a new blow dryer (!! :D), a new set of containers, bread and cake pans, and a candle.  I felt very loved with everyone there!

Yesterday, the kids and I braved the nearest mall to accomplish that day's advent activity: visiting Santa.  The line wasn't long, but those photographers don't budge an inch, so I tried to get all three kids together.  Carson was nothing-doing.  The girls, on the other hand, loved visiting with St Nick and evidently want a robot (Evie) and a monkey (Lizzie).  Um...okay.

By far, the most exciting thing at the mall was this neat interactive floor screen near the food court.  It was projected from above, but these few tiles were pressure-sensitive.  It changed pictures every couple of minutes, but you could 'kick' marshmallows into cocoa, chase snowflakes, help holiday characters down a ski slope, and do a puzzle.  Not bad, I thought.  And it kept them occupied and active for a solid 10 minutes.  (It would have kept them longer, but I didn't want them to hog the fun from other kids.)  Because of this one activity, the mall wasn't the nightmare I was dreading, being alone with them.  It was actually pretty fun!

My personal favorite, though, was parking right by the entrance. :)

Gingerbread {Graham Cracker} Houses

Last night was our designated night to assemble and make beautiful some graham cracker huts.  Word to the wise: don't use frosting from a store to assemble them; it doesn't stay together.

Here's our before shot - with three standing structures waiting for candy goodness.

This is the one and only time Carson actually put anything on the house; I put the other candies on, and he spent the entire time removing and devouring sweets.  A regular Hansel.

See?  Told you not to assemle with the soft stuff.  We had a mini-meltdown before she realized that she could frost, decorate and eat the smaller graham crackers more easily than the whole house.

Evie got super creative and made an outline of a door using Mike n Ikes.  She was so proud!

What a simple night, not much stress, and they all really enjoyed their time!  I'm so glad that I'm at least trying to create some traditions and memories, even if it doesn't seem like much to me compared with my childhood memories.  I hope they look back on these as fondly as I do my own pictures of similar events!

Candy Cane Hot Cocoa

This was nothing huge or exciting.  On Monday our advent activity was simply to have a cup of hot cocoa with candy canes in it.  I snagged a shot before the girls drank it down.  I was surprised that they loved it; peppermint in cocoa is not always taken so well on the first try.

Christmas Glamour Shots

Sunday we got around to taking some Christmas shots in front of the tree.

This was my favorite picture of the kids together...unfortunately, Carson was really leaning forward quite a bit.  Hip, hip, hooray! for photoshop; I was able to scrunch him closer so at least the look like they're supposed to be together. :)