Christmas Happenings

December was full of trying to squeeze in everything that should happen at Christmas time.  First thing in the month I battled our Christmas card again.  Every year I keep swearing I won't do it again, but I enjoy getting them so much that I keep doing one.

I also worked hard on making this giant countdown tree!  It was a lot of work, but I'm so glad I'll have it for future years and the kids loved having a bag to open each day.  In each bag I put a Christmas activity, a Christmas joke, and a treat or small toy. 

 One of their first days was to get a new tree for each of their rooms and they got little ornaments to decorate it.  They were all really proud of their trees, but I only ended up taking one of Whitney's.  The boys had green trees. Tucker's had car ornaments and Tommy's had blue and dinosaurs.

 Whitney had a cute Christmas program at her preschool.  She loves singing so I'd already heard all of her songs several times before the actual program.

 Tommy had a Christmas program as well.  I was really impressed with his music teacher. He was very creative with the kids and different instruments and I could tell they all loved him.

 Tommy's class party was riding the Polar Express (and watching the movie) so they all came in their pajamas and Vic punched their ticket before they got on the train.  The other moms told me the kids loved him.  I'm sure he hammed it up!

 The kids were very proud to be able to decorate this little tree by themselves.  Here they are ready to go to the Miller family Christmas party.  There wasn't very many little cousins that came this year, but my Aunts and Uncles are so welcoming that the kids still really loved it!

 This year I strayed from my usual red and gold tree so that we could have a "Frozen" tree.  I had a hard time loving it because it wasn't the traditional colors, but the kids were quite happy with it & Elsa came to visit us a lot more this month! 

 A close up so you can see some Elsa ornaments. 

 We love driving around to look at lights and we have a few favorite houses.  One where Santa comes out on Friday and Saturdays...

 ...and one that has a great light show.  The kids were very happy to see that the owners programmed in both Frozen songs and Minion songs.

 We went to our ward Christmas party as well and we were happy that Santa decided to surprise us with a visit!

 This year I had the kids write letters giving Santa a list of their top 3 things they like so they were a bit confused when he asked them what they wanted. They didn't know what to say so I helped them out a little.

 I really wanted to act out the nativity scene to highlight the reason for the season so we hosted an FHE at our house.  Here is the kids making cookies for it.

 I assigned everyone a part and a few speaking parts ahead of time. Below you can see King Caesar, the angel, shepherds, wisemen, and barn animals.  Tommy was Joseph, Whitney was a big, and Tucker was a donkey.  Whitney was supposed to be a shepherd, but when she saw what she had to wear, she quickly came up with her own outfit.  (a pink sparkly dress with a pink pig mask).

Afterwards we played a quiz game with Christmas trivia.  The Draper family killed it!  Then the kids got to decorate their own cookies.  My spray food coloring was the biggest hit for the decorations. 

 A few days before Christmas we drove down to Pocatello to visit my friend Heather.  The girls made this pink Hello Kitty gingerbread house I bought on clearance last year.  Even though the candy was a year old, they had eaten most of it within the hour!

 Here is the one the boys did.

 The kids also made lots of cute art during the month.

Tommy's Birthday

This year, for the first time, I decided that we'd try having Tommy's birthday party in 6 months from now so that our December wasn't too crowded.  He is such a sweetie and happily agreed, he did decide he wants a dinosaur party so we went with that same theme for his birthday.  His birthday landed on a Sunday and Vic had to work so he just opened a few presents from us.  Here he is happy as can be on his 6th birthday.

On Monday he decided to take minion twinkies as his class treat.

 There was another snow storm so we had to shovel before we could even go out and celebrate.  Tommy worked on making this mini mountain he was quite proud of.

We picked up his cousins, Will and Sam from school and they all went to the new Disney Dinosaur movie at Edwards then we took him to Toys R' Us to use some birthday money.... dinosaurs to go with his birthday theme.

Tommy's favorite meal is hamburgers so we went to Red Robin as our "fancy" restaurant for him.

 We felt weird having cake alone so we let him invite one neighbor friend over and he chose Colter, a boy 4 doors down.

 He picked an oreo ice cream cake.

 Birthday Boy & his presents

 They played for a long time afterward.  He was very pleased with his birthday!

 Here's a few gifts he got afterwards too.

 I'd say he was most excited about this gift from Grandpa Miller.  Hot Wheels are super cool in his little world right now.  I was okay starting to move away from Thomas finally until I realized it is the exact same expensive thing, except cars instead of trains!

An update on Tommy at 6:

Tommy loves kindergarten and especially his teacher, Mrs. Jones.  I love her too so that is a nice start to public schools!  Tommy is extremely smart and motivated to keep learning.  He was very proud to pass off all of his sight words and start reading before anyone else in his class.  I have continued to buy 1st grade math and writing books for him so he is always progressing in his schoolwork. 

Tommy is very strict on rules and is our little rule enforcer at our house.  He loves to help me with house work and throughout the day he will repeatedly tell me "Mommy, I'll do whatever you want me to do."  I'll give him a small task and he can hardly wait to come back and tell me that he did it.  He has a very tender heart and is very loving to Vic and I.

If Tommy doesn't know you then he'll hardly look at you or say a word, but once he is comfortable he is very comfortable raising his hand in class and excitedly blurting out a story or running around the house with excited squeals.  He's always trying to get Tucker to laugh and because of that is very into potty talk right now.

Tommy still loves trains and can spend half a day setting up his train village, but he is also very into Avenger super heroes, Hot Wheels, and Legos. We also just barely let him learn how to play the Nintendo Game Cube so when he gets screen time he's happily been giving up movie time and trying to master Nintendo's Mario Cart or Shootie Skies on the iPad.  He's been begging to buy Mine Craft as well, but I don't want him to get into that yet.  He still spends a lot of time playing house as Whitney is always begging to play house all day long.

Overall, he is an amazing, sweet, responsible, and playful little boy... just as every 6 year old should be!!!

Thanksgiving Weekend

Thanksgiving morning we woke up to a snow storm so we ran out and got our picture taken for our Christmas card, but since we didn't get a family picture this year, I guess this counts for both!

 Whitney was quite jealous of Tommy's turkey shirt so I made her one too and a matching tutu.  It was fun to see them wearing it around all day.

 Here was the kid's end of the table: Vic, Tucker, Ivy, Whitney,Chloe,Trevor, Abby, Colter, Will, Tommy, Sam

 Adults End: Nancy, Amber, Shaun, Grandma Van Sickle, Mark, Mom, Aunt Pam, Uncle Danny, Vic

Found this picture on Vic's phone :)

 Amber was in a hurry to leave afterwards so the kids hurried outside right after their dinner was done to play in the new snow.

 The rest of us played games while the kids watched movies.  Vic had to leave to go to work after dinner and I braved hitting a few stores for black Friday/Thanksgiving sales.  I also had done a lot of online shopping that morning so I wouldn't have to cut into family time to get the good deals.  I hate having shopping on Thanksgiving... it should be outlawed!

 Idaho Falls brought back the light parade.  I always remember this from when I was a kid so I was sure to be there this year even though it was FREEZING cold!  Next year we'll be in full snow clothes and gear!  I was worried it might be too junky, but it seemed really magical to the kids so I was glad we went!

 We celebrated Thanksgiving with my Dad the next day and he pulled them around on his 4-wheeler.  He might as well have kinged himself!  The kids went on and on about how awesome Grandpa Miller was for doing this!  They loved it despite the freezing air!

 Tucker had a close encounter with dad's cows.  The cows were very curious about sledding and kept chasing after the sled.  They got pretty close, it was funny to watch!

November Happenings

We had a crazy busy fall so we didn't  have time to do fall clean up until mid November this year.  Last year Vic did it while I was at work so I didn't realize it would take the entire day to get it done!  I love my big trees, but they sure make a mess!!  I had 3 cute helpers.

 ...or messers.  They had fun "swimming" in the leaves.

 Vic planted a bunch of carrots this year and we got a lot of really weird carrots.  Here is a nice big one the kids were all proud of.  I am glad they didn't freeze before we dug them up!

 Can you believe a week later we were playing in this?!  Crazy Idaho.  I am thankful we had such a nice long fall though.

 Whitney still prefers to sit around and eat snow more than any other snow activity! (In the background you can see Vic making snowballs as the boys had fun with a snowball fight)

 Our first snowman of the season!

 Tucker filled up his potty chart so we got to go have an ice cream party.  I wish that meant he was fully potty trained, but he is a lot closer than the other two at this age.

 Grandma found a yummy pumpkin spice cookie recipe so they made a lot of cookies in November whenever she watched them!

 We made these cute chocolate turkeys for the people I visit teach and a few friends.

 Tommy brought home a turkey had to disguise and he said he wanted it dressed like "Flash".  I'm embarrassed to say that I had no idea who that was so I looked him up. He turned out pretty cute!

 I made this big turkey craft.  I was very intimidated to take on such a big project, but he's cute!

 We went and painted at Amber's studio.  Tucker was quite proud of his tiny little canvas.  He is obsessed with the color orange right now.

 The other kids did another turkey.  They improved a lot from last year.  Mom's wasn't done when we left so her's is half way there.

 Some tiny thing made Whitney mad and the entire way home this is what I saw so I took a picture when we got home.... mostly to show what I see a lot of!  She is a very happy and cute little girl, but tiny things make her mad a lot and she won't drop it so I'll see this face for quite awhile afterward!