Christmas Festivities

The Christmas festivities started on Thanksgiving with setting up Christmas decor and continue to be a thrill for the kids. Our elf stopped by the first day of December. This year we have a girl elf, although she looks just like the boy, and her name is Dandy. We attended a fun Christmas activity at the library. They had a Santa visit and had a little store kids could shop at full of kid-affordable gifts. They assigned a shopper to help the kids so they could get something for their parents. It was very fun for them. Brigham also made best friends with Santa and went back for a third, fourth, I have no idea how many visits.

We also stopped by Bass Pro for their Santa workshop activities and our yearly Santa picture. My parents came to visit and the kids opened all their Christmas presents from grandma and grandpa. They were very spoiled. The boys got their first Lego sets and Grandpa helped put them together.  We also got a late delivery package just the other day that contained Super Hero Lego Men only.  Brigham has been loving them.  I swear I can never guess what toys that boy will like.  Other gifts included stamps, Leapfrog Explorer, house with keys, trash pack dump truck, magnetic alphabet letters, puzzles, polly pocket, littlest pet shop, Magic School Bus science experiments, and Christmas jammies.  We also had to make a stop at Andy's ice cream and check out the Christmas lights around town.

Our ward had a Christmas party with authentic middle eastern food and Christmas carols. I wasn't too sure about the food but it ended up being pretty good. It wasn't the most kid-friendly program so we ended up leaving early. We can only tell the kids to be quiet and stop running on a Saturday night so many times before it's exhausting.

I randomly found a gingerbread train at the store and grabbed it to put together.  The kids loved doing it.  They just love doing that sort of thing and I have been meaning to go get another house to decorate to add to the train.  Hopefully it happens before Christmas.

 

We made ornaments for the kids mini tree. The idea was that they would decorate their own tree and leave the big tree alone. It didn't work and most of their ornaments ended up disappearing.

We tried making ornaments out of homemade Clay but it didn't work. Apparently the blog we read skipped a crucial step- you have to cook the mixture. We'll get that next time.

Benson and Vanessa also made this cute Christmas tree. We used the bottle caps Jon has been bringing home from work. They look just like buttons.

We did a little science experiment with food coloring and flowers. We did red and green to be festive. Vanessa knew exactly what would happen but it was still neat to watch. We also switched some of the flowers to see if the color would mix in the petals. But it didn't. They just had streaks of red and green.

On Christmas Eve, we made and decorated sugar cookies.  Vanessa said we needed to make sugar cookies because those are Santa's favorite (same as hers). 

We had minestrone soup for dinner, read the Christmas story from the Bible, did a treasure hunt to find one present, and then The Night Before Christmas.  The kids were in bed by 8 and Jon and I were able to watch a movie!  They also slept in until about 6:30 which was great.  We all got up and went to open presents together.  I have zero pictures of first thing Christmas morning and just a few before breakfast.

On Christmas morning, Jon just wanted bacon and eggs. Easy peasy. But I wanted something fun for the kids so we made snowmen and reindeer. I tried to do santas with strawberries and cream but it was a fail. We just had strawberries and cream. 

In the afternoon we went to a movie at the theater. We saw Penguins of Madagascar. I forgot to get a picture inside but here we are heading home with our ginormous popcorn refill.

 

Jon completely spoiled me this year.  He basically gave me anything I could ever want for the kitchen. I used most of it to make dinner and I loved it.  We had a honey baked ham, steamed broccoli (the steamer was from Shauna), mashed potatoes, green beans, and strawberries.

Jon got a drill press and a blu ray player (for all three blu ray discs we own).

 

Grandma Brady sent the kids a gift card to pick out their own toy. Benson picked a bird that sings. Vanessa picked some ponies. And Brigham threw a tantrum and didn't pick anything. So I ordered him some ninja turtle Legos from ebay (that's what the tantrum was about because they didn't have any ninja turtles left). She also sent them Christmas church clothes.