Christmas Tree
We went through this great place for our Christmas tree: Home Depot. :-) I was excited to pick it out pretty early (the 4th) because we'd be traveling around the actual holiday. We womenfolk got banished inside the house while the menfolk did the manly cutting of the trunk. I was allowed to sneak out to get a few pictures of Speed being manly.
After sitting there for a couple of days, I finally got some lights up only to discover that I hung the accidentally-purchased blinking strand in the middle (grrrr) and one of the strings wouldn't stay on (double grrr). Then a couple more days after that, we finally got around to hanging up ornaments during the First Presidency Christmas Devotional. Hazel and Speed were excited to put them up and Zizah was excited to take them right back down. :-)
I really should have gotten pictures of the just tree but I didn't. I did really enjoy my special homemade tree topper. We only bothered with ornaments on the side toward the room. We just don't have that many ornaments anymore plus the kids would only hang them where it was easy to reach. It was pretty funny to me how the ornaments all started out on the lowest branches but slowly got moved up and up and up as time went on to keep them away from Zizah.
You can kinda see the tree behind Zizah in this picture. This is later in the month so the ornaments are slowly creeping higher and higher.
Temple Lights
We took one night to go see the temple lights. Is it bad if I say dinner was the best part of the night? Pete's Fish and Chips is just super yummy. The kids handled staying up late better than usual and Jacob was able to talk himself out of a ticket during his run-in with the law. And no, I'm not going to elaborate on that. :-P
They are SOOOO cheesy. And here's some pics from my sister-in-law so you can see that Jacob and I do exist.
Gingerbread Houses
I honestly like decorating gingerbread houses. I think it's fun and I totally don't sneak candy the entire time. Totally. Also, I really like gingerbread. However, December isn't the most open month for me, so I usually don't spearhead something like that. Thankfully, my sister-in-law is more willing to make the houses up (some gingerbread, some graham cracker) and let us help decorate them! So we were happy to host their family to decorate some this year. I was honestly surprised how long the two older kids focused and how hard they worked to make their houses what they wanted to be. I guess they are growing up. Sigh.
Jacob's and my house is the one in the middle back
Hazel's masterpiece
Speed mostly helped his cousin, Jarek, with this little beauty
Their family tradition is to take the houses out back on Christmas and shoot them with BB guns. I wasn't quite sure what we'd do with our's but it turns out I'm not the only gingerbread fan in this family. We pretty much demolished the houses before Christmas got here. Oh so yummy.
Ward Christmas Party
Since I'm the Relief Society secretary and the Relief Society was asked to plan the Christmas Party this year (again), I was more involved with the execution of stuff that night than I wanted to be. But even with all the craziness, I think the night turned out pretty nice. I was sad that I was backstage during the part of the nativity program when the kids were singing. I guess you can take the girl out of the theater, but etc. etc. insert silly platitude here. But the program turned out nice and we kept it simple: dinner, nativity program, Santa. Hazel was all excited to ask Santa for some candy but Speed was NOT interested.
And here's a little clip of the Primary kids singing "Away in a Manger". I take no responsibility for the quality of the filming. I was backstage, remember? :-P But a big thank you to my brother-in-law for filming this so I could appreciate Hazel's cuteness after the fact.
Hazel's Stuff
Hazel had two big events in December that probably deserve their own post but I'm trying to get caught up so sorry, kid.
First was she participated in her kindergarten "Winter Holiday" concert. ::snort:: Anyway, she was selected to recite a poem with one of her friends and she did a really good job memorizing it and singing all of the song. She still randomly pops out a verse or two of "Must Be Santa" on occasion. I didn't get much in the way of pictures or anything that day because I was trying to not cry enjoy the moment.
Second was she finished her first season of soccer! Her team only won one or two games the whole season and had one draw but she had a good time. But they all got a certificate and trophy at the end, which she is SUPER proud of. She liked it so much that she's playing again this season.
Advent Calendar
For those who ever go on Facebook or Google+, you already got more shots of our Lego Advent Calendar than you ever wanted to. But we really appreciated the calendar (provided by Grandma Wall) because the kids are SO super into Lego right now. Plus some of those pieces were just freaking cool. Here's just a few of the shots.
Speed's favorite one: Chase McCain!
Hazel's favorite: the train
Sugar Cookies
I usually make some type of Christmas treats but I'm not big into decorating sugar cookies, as traditional as it might be. Mostly because I just really don't like sugar cookies that much. I did actually make treat boxes for Jacob's home teaching families (molasses cookies, Russian tea cookies, homemade Butterfingers, and homemade caramels). But in trying to do more organized yet fun FHE activities, I made a batch of sugar cookies one night and we all worked together to cut out and bake them. We never really made it to the decorating part. Don't judge me. And let's just say I'm still looking for a good sugar cookie recipe. :-)
December was full but very, very fun. Merry Christmas post coming soon....
1 comment:
Love the post and all of the pictures.
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