We got to visit with Santa a lot this year. We saw him at a Highland City craft day event. It was crowded but fun. And of course crafts is right up these 3 kids alley. We also saw him at a Ward Christmas breakfast and then again at the kids Polar Express parties at school. Good thing Santa knew exactly what they wanted after seeing them so many times.
We had our annual Gingerbread house decorating. Each year I think I should buy them each their own and then I just don't. And then when we decorate it I remember why. These 3 laugh their heads off decorating together. They each take a side to decorate and work together to make their masterpiece. I love watching them laugh, decorate and then eat all the candy and frosting they didn't use. We don't need 3 gingerbread houses when 1 is just perfect for us.
Ridgeline hosted a gingerbread extravaganza night. We got to take pictures, make ornaments, and drink hot chocolate. It was a fun night.
The kids just couldn't get over the fact that just because we don't live in Draper, why we can't still go to the annual candy cane hunt. So since the girls had their yearly check up at the doctor in Draper the same day, we decided to go. We got a bunch of candy canes but no prizes this year. This is the last year the girls are young enough to attend so we probably won't go anymore but it's been a fun tradition to go each year since they were 2 years old.
Jaron has a little friend that lives 2 doors down named Bentley. After our first snow storm one day Jaron didn't have preschool and so him and Bentley decided they would go out and play. It was cute when they both came out of their house in the exact same coat.
Sparky our elf showed up Dec. 1. The kids were thrilled that he knew where we moved to and had found our new home. This year the kids were convinced they could talk to Sparky and he would answer them back. That was a little tricky when the kids started telling him where to hide the next day and he would agree! He was a little crazier this year and ended up in our refrigerator, wrapped himself up in toilet paper and hung out sliding down our banister.
We got tickets to a little Night in Bethlehem. It was cute, we had to take canned food to donate as our 'tax' to give to Caesar. Then we watched a video and then were led into a room with little shops set up just like Bethlehem would've been. We got to make little candles, learn to weave, knead some dough, and learn to play the games they might have played back then. Then we watched a short performance of the Nativity which was nice and a fun little night to do with the family.
Siena had on her Christmas list something she wanted. A Smooshy Mushy. Apparently they were being sold at Walmart but I could not find them anywhere. I tried ordering them for pick up at 5 different walmarts and one by one they would all cancel my order and tell me they were out of stock. Eventually I gave up and ordered them at Amazon for double the price. A few days later Siena and Shane were Christmas shopping and Siena walked into a walmart and found Smooshy Mushy's in stock in the store. So we bought them and they had to earn their smooshy mushy's that took about 5 days to do. I was bugged that I had looked so hard and Siena just walked in and found them ruining my great surprise I had lined up for Christmas morning but it was cute to see how excited she was to find it since I had her convinced they were no where to be found.
I got to volunteer at the Kindergarten Polar Express Party. It was so cute. They have the cutest bus driver at Ridgeline that dresses up for every holiday and so he dressed up as the Conductor and read the story to the whole kindergarten. At the end Santa showed up. Then they split into classes and had 5 different activities to do. I was in charge of taking a picture of each child with Santa. It was a fun morning. Jaron got to do a mini Polar Express party and this is a picture of him whispering to Santa what he wanted (Hot Wheels track)
My mom's neighbor gave her a couple tickets to go see the Christmas Mormon Tabernacle Choir concert. It was so fun and it has been years since I've been to their concert. It was fun spending a night with my Mom.
The kids participated in the Ridgeline Christmas sing performance. The girls sang I love Mrs. Santa Claus and Jaron sang a snowman medley which was so cute.
The week before Christmas we had a family dinner and since not everyone would be around for Christmas eve, we did the nativity with family then. It was good but Jaron was not feeling well and had come down with a fever so he didn't participate and we had to leave right after.
Shane got out his grandpa South's train set. I was making sugar cookies to decorate on Christmas eve and Shane got this out and the kids sat and played and watched it like this for seriously about 2 hours straight. The train is old and pretty fragile so we don't keep it out all the time but it was fun to get it out for a couple days and play with it. They even made a tunnel out of all our presents under the tree.
Christmas Eve was so nice. We had a one hour sacrament program. Then we went to my parents for dinner, played the chimes, decorated Christmas sugar cookies and the kids opened up their slippers I got them as their Christmas Eve present.
Christmas morning was fun. The kids came in at 5:30 saying they just couldn't sleep any longer! I promptly put them back to bed and they didn't come back in until 7:00. We had a great Christmas and the kids got a lot of fun toys. We got them all Rollerskates and I wasn't sure if they would like them or not but they loved them. They took them to the basement and learned and picked up on it pretty fast and soon were performing roller skate shows for us. Shane got me a robot vaccuum that I LOVE. The kids named it Clean Clean. lol. That afternoon we went to my parents for a yummy turkey dinner and more fun with cousins.
As soon as we had looked at all of Santa's gifts, we got ready to open presents. This is my favorite part of Christmas because I love the look on their faces as the others open presents they have picked out for each them. It seriously is the cutest to see. However, my favorite part of Christmas this year was before I opened any present they wanted me to open their present they had made together. This was the first gift under the tree weeks before and they had spent one afternoon putting together. They prefaced the gift with this. 'Mom, we really wanted to give you gold, but gold is really hard to find so we got you this instead.' Inside was a box of acorn tops they had collected from our yard. It was the sweetest, most sincere gift and although I would've loved a box of gold, this little gift meant more than a box of gold because it came from their heart.
Christy came into town after Christmas and we had such a fun time playing non stop. For Christmas my parents gave us dinner and tickets to the new Hale Centre Theatre to see Aida, we went and saw The Greatest Showman, went to the mall and had dinner just about every night at my parents. It was a fun and busy week.
New Year's Eve was also spent at my parents house (they must be exhausted after having us over every day!) We played the left, right, center dollar game and celebrated new years about 9:00.
