Gingerbread Houses

This was one of the Christmas activities that was on the top of the kids "To Do" list.  I bought 2 gingerbread houses, so we had a boy one and a girl one.  The girl team got Lola, which made it interesting.  There was not much of a pattern to our house, but the we had a good time.

It is so hard to be sitting in front of so much candy and not eat it!!  There was lots of taste testing and finger licking!

Here is the boy house.

Here is the girls house.

Lola used so much frosting to put the candies on!!

Zoe's Secret Santa

Zoe's class did a Secret Santa this year for their Christmas activity.  Zoe absolutely loved this.  I'm sure it was really fun getting little gifts in her cubby each day, but she LOVED giving the gifts too!  She would get so excited to sneak gifts into her friends cubby each day and she loved to come home and tell me how excited her friend would get when she would find it.  On the last day of school they had a party and exchanged their final gifts and told each other who they were Secret Santas to.  Zoe got to be Secret Santa to her good little friend.  The party afterwards was full of tons of fun crafts,a service project, and enough goodies to sink a ship! :)

Scott gets to come to all the kids parties with me because they always happen to be right when I am supposed to pick him up from kindergarten.  The kids love when he comes!  They love to take him around with them and have him do all the activities with them.  Scott loves it too because it's a party!!

Gift Exchange

Instead of the adults giving gifts to each other this year on Matt's side of the family we all went out together.  We went to dinner at the "Wild Zucchini" and then to the Kurt Bestor Christmas Concert.  It was really fun!  We went to Kurt Bestor quite  a bit when I was growing up so this brought back some good memories.  It was a nice snowy day, which made driving an adventure, but it was beautiful in Salt Lake!

Scott's Grinch Play

Scott's class did The Grinch for his Christmas program.  It was really cute!  I love Scott's "who" outfit of choice.  I was really sick this morning, so he kind of fended for himself.  He came to my bed side and asked what I thought a who would wear.  I told him I didn't know and he said "I bet they dress pretty fancy".  Then he left and came back in a jacket from one church suit, pants from a different church suit, a tie, and his school polo.  I thought he looked adorkable :)

After the play his class had a little Christmas party.

Thanksgiving Point Lights

At Matt's work party we were given a certificate to go see the lights at Thanksgiving point.  I love seeing these lights because you get to see them from the warmth and comfort of your car.  Our kids do beg us to get out afterwards and see the reindeer and the ice sculptures, which is usually not too cold because they have gigantic fire pits to stand by.  This year though, we happened to go on a "no Burn Day", Bummer!  We were chilly!  But we saw the cool sculptures, said Hi to the reindeer, and then went back to our nice warm car and went home.  When we got home we watched a Christmas movie with our kids and then had a family sleepover by the Christmas tree.  It was fun!

Lucia Day

Lucia Day is a Swedish Holiday that I grew up celebrating with my family since my Mom served her mission in Sweden.  Since all it requires is eating cinnamon rolls and telling a story, it has been one that I have gladly carried on with my own little family.

Chase's Choir Concert

As a big portion of Chase's music grade he was required to sing with the 6th grade choir at their Christmas concert.  He did not love this, I did :)  They did really good.  I really enjoyed it!

Service Chain

Almost every year since Matt and I have been married our Christmas count down chain has been a service chain.  We write services down that we will do for each other, link them all up, and take one off every day until Christmas.  The kids love this!  They love doing their service and they love when they are the ones that get served too.  All of us write down a service that we will do for each person in the family, so the initial chain is more than 24 links long.  This year it was 49 links long, so we did three a day for a while, and then two a day, until it came time to just do one.  We've had some fun services this year.  A few for example are:  Scotland painted Aspen's nails, and gave me a massage.  Aspen did Chase's laundry and took a nap with Lola.  Zoe helped me with the laundry and made Scott chocolate milk. I had a sleep over with Aspen and made Lola cookies.  Matt took Chase out for eggnog and had a sleep over with Scott.  Lola shared toys and played with everyone :). And Chase did Aspen's chores and built a snowman with Lola.  Luckily the snowman one got picked on a nice snowy day!  Lola was thrilled!

That Fun Age!

Cooper is 18 months, and is now at that fun age where there is nothing he can't get into and destroy.  He is therefore only fun to have around at home where I can let him go wild :)  Church, kids school, soccer games, recitals, and shopping are a nightmare with this little man!  I feel like I have to follow him around and just ruin his fun and tell him "no" the entire time.  But at home, if I can, I try and let him explore a little.  On this day he hopped on top of the kitchen table, dumped out an entire bag of cereal, and ate to his little hearts content while I did the dishes.

Hotel with Gardners

We spent Friday night at a hotel with Matt's family.  It was great!  The kids spent 90% of the time in the pool.  They swam until like 10:30pm, and were back in first thing in the morning.   Some of my kids skin still hasn't recovered from all the chlorine, but it was worth it :)  Cooper is so Darn cute!  I love watching him try and hang with the big kids!  Everytime we would walk in the elevator he would go over pusha button and then got to the wall and hang on the bar with the rest of the kids.  Then just as the elevator would stop he would try his hardest to jump like all the other kids would do (he still can't figure out how to get both legs off the ground at the same time so him jumping is the cutest thing!)

Cooper is blowing a kiss here, he just slightly missed his mouth :)

We could not keep his pants on.  I didn't put a diaper on him, so the fact that being naked was just one small step away was just so exciting!  Every time he would stand up he would quickly try and yank his pants off!

All my children packed for themselves, so I was a little surprised when Zoe showed up at the pool wearing a long sleeved ballet leotard.  Oh well!  Zoe and I often get along best if I smile and ignore her out fit choices :)