December 2012

Every December we do an advent calendar. The kids look forward to activities everyday and, honestly, I do too. This year I was not perfect at taking pictures of all our fun-ness. Not everyday is something big. Some days its "watch a Christmas movie" or "read a Christmas story". We do try to do one or two big things a week. In past years we have gone swimming at the rec center, but this year we didn't make it. Hopefully we'll resume that tradition next year.

 

Making and decorating sugar cookies.

 

 

This was after our nativity lesson. I bought the fisher price nativity set (behind Sage in this picture) off Ebay two years ago. Best Christmas decoration we own. I wanted it to have all the pieces (some are just sold with the wise men, no shepards), so thats why I chose Ebay. Every year we pull it out and talk about the nativity using the pieces. Someday I'll have a nice nativity set, but until then I love this one.

 

 

Decorating the tree!

 

Just a funny, random picture. Having a sister is awesome.

 

One day we went for a walk out in the snow. This is the only picture I took. Wow he is cute.

 

We made salt dough ornmanets with Camille, Jackson and Jayne. We did their handprints (and Jonas' footprint also).

 

Temple Square. The temperature was in the teens. Brr.

 

After walking around temple square we got ourselves some awesome hot cocoa. The kid got an oreo one that had a bunch of oreos crushed up and put in the cocoa. It was delicious.

 

(We took down some chocolate cake in about 10 seconds flat. We're pretty good at that sort of thing.)

Macy's is bringing back the old ZCMI window displays. This year they were ornaments made entirely of candy. 

We also were able to spend some time with cousins. Lindsey brought her kids down a couple of times and we got to spend some quality time with some of our favorite buddies.

 

We built forts.

 

And painted toenails.

This year I got smart with our neighbor gifts and made something quick, easy and delicious. In years past I have made pumpkin roll, sugar cookies, and frozen cookie balls. As our neighbor list grows (as does our family), I have found that I can't take on such a big project. So instead we made these rolo turtles. They are yummy and we knocked out 150 of them in about 20 minutes.

 

Not pictured:

 Delivering neighbor gifts. We have a tradition of caroling when we deliver the treats. This year we spiced it up a bit with a series of percussion instruments (the kids both had drums and Nic and I had bells). Its was festive. I always tell people they should feel lucky if they weren't home when we dropped presents off.

 

The church history museum where we visited with Father Christmas himself.

 

Dinner with Nic at the Huntsman. (We actually do this most weeks.)

 

Wrapping presents.

 

Going to the dollar store to shop for sibling's presents. (Mason got Sage a new crown (he broke her other one) and Jonas a book, Sage got Mason a puzzle and Jonas a book, and Jonas got both the kids a finger puppet glove craft kit.) I loved doing this with the kids. They were so sweet trying to find the perfect present for each other.