Christmas Festivities

The weekend before Christmas (Yes. I know its March. Lets stay focused here.) We headed up to Idaho Falls for a fun filled day of partying.

It started out with the Kelley party (my dad and Penni). Last year we went bowling as part of the party and it was a hit. Mason asked all year long when we could go again. They decided to do it again this year and I think it shared the same results.

After bowling we headed over to Papa Tom's for pizza, then to my dad and Penni's house to open presents. It was madness I tell you. Kids everywhere, wrapping paper flying all over the place, toys being pulled out of boxes and assembled amongst the chaos. It was really pretty fun and my kids really loved it. Sage got a super cute princess castle and Mason got his first set of Lego's. Penni also made the kids and incredible binder full of all kinds of activities. For example, she laminated a bunch of coloring book pictures and put in dry erase crayons. She put in puzzles and games and pretty much everything imaginable into this thing. And it was all organized so that everything had a place within the binder and so it can travel with us. Its really cool and the kids think its awesome.

Immediately following the Kelley party we headed out to my mom and Kim's for the Holland party. This party has been a tradition since I can remember and with both my grandparents gone, my mom has worked hard to keep the tradition alive. I love seeing my aunts, uncles, and cousins. They are all really great people and I just enjoy being with them.

Kim with Jonas on the left and my cousin Karlee's son Brinkley on the right. My cousin's kids area all pretty close to the age of my kids. She also has a son, a daughter, and a son. Pretty cool.

After the Holland party we headed up to the Country Club for the Hall party. Not sure why but I didn't get any pictures from this. Its a pretty huge party with over 140 people in the family (crazy!), and its always fun to catch up with everyone. My Grandma and 

Grandpa Hall are extremely generous people and they throw the party and spoil everyone down to the youngest great grandchild. 

After the Hall party we headed back to mom and Kim's so that all the grand kids could open presents (again!) My kids have had the chance to really get to know Justin and Nicole's kids through trips to Arizona and they just adore them. I wish we had a chance to see all the other cousins more.

After all the cousins left we opened Christmas PJs from my mom, and Muncle Matt read the Polar Express (also a tradition).

This is the only picture where one of the four participants didn't have their finger in their nose. Just kidding Matt. Only not really.

I look forward to this crazy weekend of partying every year. I might worry or complain about having to be everywhere at once, but I really love seeing family. Especially the ones we don't get to see very often. And our kids love it too. Not to mention that they get spoiled rotten by everyone they come in contact with. I think they kind of like that too.

After the weekend party binge we headed back to Utah to spend Christmas in our own home. This made for some complications this year as we hadn't celebrated Christmas with the Pierson side of the family yet. But Nic was a good sport and gave into my wishes to make more than one trip to IF so we could have Christmas at home.

On Christmas eve we headed to one of our favorite markets/restaurants Tony Caputtos. Nic bought some fancy (stinky) cheese, I bought some chocolate, and we ate some of their awesome sandwiches. Then we stopped at the bakery next door for some dessert. It was actually quite picturesque since it was snowing (heavily) those big huge snowflakes and people were bustling about downtown. Its a good memory for me.

After lunch we braved some pretty crappy roads and headed down to the new Scheels store. (A random adventure for Christmas eve, I know.) But much to the kids' delight we found that they have a ferris wheel inside the store. And not only that, but they also had a dead and stuffed elk (that the kids were certain was a reindeer) that they could sit on. It was a success all around.

That evening we headed over to my Aunt Julie and Uncle Paul's house for some Christmas eve festivities. I was so grateful to them for inviting us over because with all the partying we had done the few days before I was a little ill prepared for Christmas eve. We had soup and ate crepes and had the kids re-enact the nativity scene. Below is my cousin Tyson's son Tag and his daughter Alta.

Sage was the angel and she spent most of the time crawling around on that window seat singing "Happy Jesus to me. Happy Jesus to me." (In the Happy Birthday tune.)

After Paul and Julie's we headed back to our house for our own Christmas eve. We set out our stockings, left Santa his cookies and milk (and the reindeer some carrots), read some Christmas stories and scriptures and headed to bed.

Nic is going to love that I put this picture on the blog, but I think its funny.

Then Santa came.

This sweet baby's first Christmas. Makes me teary thinking about all these "firsts" that are flying by.

Sage is a bit like her mom. Not a morning person. I think we would have had just as much success in the present department if we had just bought her candy canes. A few of those babies and she did eventually warm up to everything else and was her usual funny self.

This is the crown Mason picked out for Sage. She "yoved!" it and Mason was so proud.

My dear friend Deb sends the kids a package every year. She is possibly the most talented person I know and one of her many talents is knitting. She knitted the kids these cute hats.

(Mason's is actually a fish and the opening for his head is its mouth. Its really cute and funny.)

This is how all of the pictures of these three together ends up looking like. Sage eventually starts "kissing" Jonas and if you've ever had a good kiss from Sage you know that they can be pretty powerful kisses.

We ate breakfast and the kids played with their toys for a bit, then we headed back to Idaho for the Pierson family party. We had a great dinner and opened presents (Again, I didn't take any pictures. Not sure what was wrong with me). Then Shawn somehow got conned into helping the kids make cotton candy with Chloe's new cotton candy machine. By this time I had gone home with a tired baby, but I'm sure it was fantastic.

The next few days after Christmas were spent hanging out at my mom's. (By then my mom and Kim had gone back to Arizona). A pretty big snow storm hit Utah and made the roads getting home kind of gross, so we actually stayed an extra day in Idaho and to avoid the stress of trying to get home in the storm. It was nice to slow down after a long weekend of craziness.

The fact that I am not writing this post anywhere near the Christmas season does not change my feelings about the meaning of Christmas. I am truly grateful for my Savior not just at Christmas time, but all the time. And I am so grateful to my Heavenly Father for giving me faces like the one above to look at and love every day.

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.