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!

Christmas Activties

Our first few days of December have been busy! We have our countdown activities ready and waiting for us. Our first couple of activities have not been a disappointment!

We had a candy cane hunt around the house. It took the kids a lot longer to find candy canes than it does Easter eggs, but eventually all the candy canes were found and a few were devoured. 

 Thursday we had a really wonderful opportunity to go to a Living Nativity. We were amazed with everything they had for it and how real it felt. The kids were crazy excited to see real camels there!

 They had "Bethlehem" set up and running like a city. We got to see people doing their work, taking care of animals, and selling things in a market. The kids all got to try some hammering and they got to bang on a sword at the blacksmith shop. 

 The Wise Men told us their story.

 And then we found Mary, Joseph, and the Baby Jesus. This was such a beautiful and peaceful scene. Everyone who walked in became instantly silent and most people didn't want to walk away. It really felt like you were there and part of the nativity. Such a cool experience!!

 Some of the Roman soldiers made the girl nervous cause they kept asking us if we had paid our taxes. Adam thought they were pretty cool. 

 Ma and Pa were able to come with us. It was a really fun night!

 Friday we attempted another family activity and went to Festival of Trees. While we loved it, we learned 2 things. Don't go on a Friday night, and don't go with a toddler. We haven't been since Tessa was a tiny baby. It was a lot easier to wrangle two kids. We made it through all the amazing gingerbread houses and about 6 rows of trees before Caleb had a complete meltdown. But we loved what we saw and it was a good reminder to be thankful for our healthy babies. 

 Adam and Tessa were amazed by the gingerbread houses. Adam especially loved all of the Star Wars themes that we found.

 Our favorite tree. It was all things Rudolph and so cute!

 The girls wanted to buy this tree for their bedroom.

 Proof that we were there. Gwen did not want her picture taken. And our wonderful Daddy was off chasing Caleb around somewhere. It was an adventure!