December Memories

A few things from the last couple of weeks that we want to remember....

Gwen is our puzzle girl. She does puzzles daily and she can do hard ones! This Christmas puzzle is 50 pieces and she can do it all on her own. 

 We made fingerprint candy canes. The girls love anything that involves painting.

 Caleb discovered the whipped cream in the fridge. He had us all dying of laughter. He sprayed it in his mouth, looked totally surprised, and then said, "Mmmmm!!!" and started spraying more. Needless to say, we had to start hiding it in the back of the fridge. 

 We made reindeer cookies. Mommy is babysitting 4 extra kids these days and a couple of them were with us when we made our cookies. 

Homework is always better in a Santa hat. 

 Pa let Tess have the wishbone from the Thanksgiving turkey. The girls were so excited to pull it. Tessa got the bigger piece and wished for 2 candy canes. 

 Oddly enough the next day we had a candy cane hunt and Tessa found 2 candy canes. She was so happy her wish came true!

 Our cute Adam still wears his Santa hat day and night, unless he's at school or church. I'm not sure how many more years I will find him sleeping in it. But I sure hope this isn't the last year. He looks so much like his Uncle Mattman in this picture!

 We took a drive around Salem Pond. This is one of our favorite holiday activities. The lights on the water are so pretty!

 Adam finished reading The Hobbit a couple of weeks ago and asked if he could watch the movies. Daddy wasn't up for a late night, so Mommy stayed up late and watched the first movie with Adam. He wasn't very impressed with how much the movie strayed from the book, but he loved staying up late and watching a "grown up" movie. 

 The girls spent one Saturday morning doing ballet, gymnastics, and yoga. Tessa was the coach. I kept hearing, "Downward Dog! Upward Dog! Sitting Dog!  Running Dog! Belly Rub Dog!" I guess I need to do more yoga so they can learn some real moves. 

Santa at the Library

Monday we went to the Springville Library to see Santa. Daddy stayed home with Caleb and Mommy took the older 3 to the fun activity. While we waited for Santa to arrive, Adam got to go up and help everyone sing Jingle Bells. It's a good thing he always wears his Santa hat. He stands out.

 Santa arrived and read all the children a Christmas book. Tessa was thrilled because the book he read was a book about dinosaurs. 

 After story time, the kids got to visit with Santa for a few minutes. Adam told Santa he wanted a remote control car and a real baseball bat. Tessa said she wanted a dress like a girl from Mexico would wear. And our silly Gwennie said she wanted a toy horse and a necklace. Santa told all of them those were some good choices and he would do his best. They are lucky this year! They are sure seeing a lot of Santa! 

Father Christmas and Advent

Sunday morning, the kids woke up to a happy surprise. Father Christmas had visited our house and left the kids some fun goodies in their shoes. 

  Santa also left a special visitor at our house! Adam and Tessa were excited to see Christopher. Gwen was a little confused by him, but now that she understands what's going on, she loves finding Christopher every morning. 

 Checking out their loot.

 Caleb liked that the M&M's made noisy toys. 

 CANDY!! 

 Caleb did not like that Adam got to eat candy and he didn't. Caleb is Tessa #2. He loves sugar!

 Gwen was the last one up and a bit disoriented by what was going on. But as soon as she found candy in her shoe, all was suddenly right with the world. 

 Santa brought the kids a fun Rudolph play set too. They girls played with it for hours that morning. 

 That evening we had Mamma, Aunt Lisa, Uncle Alex, Milo, Roxy, Ellie, Zeke, and August all come over for dinner and Advent. Our kids were so happy to see their cousins. After dinner, we taught everyone about Advent and sang our song and lit our candles. It was fun to share one of our special traditions with people we love. It was nice to spend some special time with everyone. We wish we saw them more often.

Saturday Was A Busy Day!

Saturday was a busy day for us! Mommy was up by 5:30 to exercise, shower and get the grocery shopping done before kids started to wake up.  We spent the morning finishing up homework, chores, made dessert for Zeke's baptism, and got everyone ready for their different activities. We had several things going on, so we had to divide and conquer. 

Daddy took Gwen and Caleb up to Bountiful for Zeke's baptism, and Mommy, Adam, and Tessa got to attend Christmas Around the World at BYU with Ma and Pa. It was such a great show this year! They had some new dances and countries and we loved getting to spend some time with Ma and Pa. 

 After the show, Tessa went home with Ma and Pa and Adam and I headed over to the Santa Run at the Riverwoods. We cut it really close on time and looked pretty ridiculous changing into our Santa suits in the car, but we had fun laughing about it. 

We missed the beginning of the race, so we waited by the route for Aunt Gillian and Aunt Katy and then joined them. Well, Adam joined them. I remained a supportive cheerleader from the sidelines. 

Adam about died laughing when we pulled up and some kid yelled, "Look Dad!! It's Santa!" 

 I might wear the beard more often. It hides the scary braces quiet well.

 Adam made a cute little Santa, but his pants would not stay up. We laughed so hard when he would find his pants down around his ankles. Luckily, he wore basketball pants underneath. 

 It was a lot of fun and very festive. We will probably have to do this again some year.

 We got home from our day, tired and worn out, but there were still things to be done! The kids all wrote their letters to Santa and put their shoes by the tree. Father Christmas was supposed to stop by the house sometime that night and they wanted to be ready!