December Happenings

In December I was really busy with Christmas and Vic was working 6 days a week so things got a little crazy around here with the kids having some free time without supervision.

Tucker started frequently dressing up in Whitney's outfits, dresses and all!

 Found this picture on my iphone.... the tutu will let you know who that was.

 I was laying in bed one morning and I could hear the kids talking, but when I heard the front door open I leaped out of bed to see why and found these two dressed like this.  There was a snow storm in the night and they were ready to go play in it! ....they may have been a bit cold seeing how they had nothing but underwear under their snow pants!

 My rascals trying to make a sledding hill out of the driveway.  (They were very bored while I shoveled).

 I took this picture through a dirty windshield to show the amazing view we had while driving up to the cabin for New Year's Eve.

 Evan hauled the kids a long way and when he got tired he made them pull him.  I was impressed that the kids could do it!!

 Evan also decided to improve on our snow sled down the stairs and dug a bobsled trail down to the lake.  It made it a lot more fun! ....and yes, that is Vic in the back wearing my mom's purple snow suit.  He had his own pants there so I have no idea why he decided hers would be better!

 Beautiful view!

 Our Party Family!

 ...and our party group: my mom, Evan, Amber's kids, and the Draper family.  We celebrated the kid's New Year's Eve around 10pm and Evan made them a dance party in the basement. Then, after we put the kids to bed we all stayed up until 3am playing games!  That is the latest I've stayed up in a LONG time!!

Christmas

Here are my little cuties on Christmas Eve!  Vic was excited for his first Christmas Eve off in years and he was a bit disappointed.  During the day we wrapped presents, cleaned, and cooked.  I think he much prefers coming home at 5 and magically everything is done!

 We had my Dad & Lana over for dinner.  This year I went with a Carribean theme and did Carribean Pork Roast w/ yam & potatoes bakes around it, coconut rolls, mango cider, and a pineapple Christmas cake.  It was yummy!

 We opened Dad's presents and then we went to see some lights.  Tucker fell asleep in the car so he didn't get to walk around.

 We had a really late night on Christmas Eve so the kids slept in a bit.  My mom didn't want to miss the action so she came over at 6:45am and ended up waking us all up!  I was exhausted!  Here is Whitney with her singing Elsa. (She asked for Elsa barbie last year so not much different!)

 Tucker wanted cars so he got a big Little People track for his room.  He sees how cool Tommy thinks Hot Wheels is so he uses it more for Hot Wheels than his cute little cars.

 Tommy got a 6 land race track for Hot Wheels and a bunch of Hot Wheel cars.

 After Santa gifts we had breakfast.  

 The kids made their own pancake faces this year.  Here is Tommy's reindeer.

 ..and Whitney's reindeer.

 I made Tucker a Santa and then the other kids needed one too!

 Our family on Christmas morning. LOVE love this bunch!

 Mom and Mark were pretty exciting while we opened gifts.  (It takes us awhile because we let the kids play as they go.)  Aunt Katie was on the iPad watching us too.  The kids really liked that and talked about her for a few days afterwards.

 Tucker and all of his presents.

 Whitney and her presents.

 I REALLY wanted to nap in the afternoon, but the kids were way too excited to have us help them with all of their new toys and especially building legos.  We spent a couple of hours building these.

At dinner time we headed over to my mom's house to play games and snack on food.  We were all tired and about to leave at 8pm when Amber decided to show up.  We had so much fun playing games that everyone, even Ivy and Tucker stayed up until midnight!  The second we backed out of the driveway, Whitney and Tucker were already sound asleep!

Here is a picture of the kids playing their new frog game.

 We had really wanted to go sledding on Christmas day and didn't have time so we went first thing the next morning before Vic had to go to work.  It was great snow because we had another snow storm on Christmas day!

 Vic and I kept trying to run faster and harder to see who could get the furthest.  Vic of course would not stop until he could pass my line!

I think this Christmas was perfect!  The only thing missing was my siblings!!! Sure missed them.

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.