Christmas 2011

I love Christmas! I'm sad it's over. :) Even though I'm a mommy now, I still get so excited waking up Christmas morning... but now it's for different reasons - it's just SO fun to see the kids open up their presents. All the kids are so easy to please right now too, so that's a bonus.

To start with Christmas Eve... we went over to Ben's parents house for a delicious dinner and our final advent. Grandma got out the nativity costumes and this year Jake got to be Samuel the Lamanite. In the video below, we were trying to keep things cheerful even though we were throwing paper at him, so he wouldn't get sad. haha.














After Christmas Eve festivities we headed home and put out the cookies and note for Santa (I was smart this year and had Emma and Becca write out the Santa note beforehand, so we weren't trying to do it late at night after getting home)...




The kids Christmas present to us was sleeping in till 7! I think they would have slept longer even, but my eyes popped open just after 7am and everyone was still asleep... it was so weird! My kids are normally all awake at 6am, so it was like the twilight zone to have everyone still sleeping at 7 on Christmas morning. haha. I nudged Ben and we opened the kids door and they finally woke up and we started the fun. :) We all emptied our stockings first and the kids just loved it... You may not have heard but Santa recently started couponing... and my sources tell me each of our kiddos stockings were filled for about 2 dollars a piece! Most of it was all free... woot! Christmas peeps, gummy bears, toblerone, sweet tarts, nail polish, activity pads, snickers nutcrackers, little flashlights, stickers, etc. Props to Santa! :D







Claire with her little caterpillar from Becca - this year I had the kids do chores to earn money for gifts for each other - I took them to the dollar store and they got to pick out presents for their siblings and mom and dad. It was cute to see what they bought

Emma originally had asked for an Easy Bake Oven for Christmas... somehow Ben and I sneakily convinced her that it would be way cooler to get real baking stuff for Christmas. She was so excited to get her baking kit on Christmas morning along with a recipe book just like mommy's :)


The day before Ben and I made these overnight cinnamon rolls. It was great to have such a delicious breakfast with very little effort on Christmas morning - I think we've found a new tradition!







Jake graduated from a tricycle and got a big boy bike!

Becca trying out the new Disneyland Kinect game

Overall, we were greatly blessed this year for Christmas... I was proud to have not used any credit this year for gifts and we were also spoiled by family too - thanks to my parents, grandparents, and my aunt who sent us generous amounts of gift money, which really supplemented our Christmas. We feel so loved!

After our morning of gifts, breakfast, and some playtime, we quickly got ready and headed to the Lee's ward - Uncle Ben spoke in Sacrament and it was great to all be together. Then we met up at Ben's parents home for a yummy lunch and gift exchange - once again, we were really spoiled...

The best gift of all might be having these 3 sweet babies in the family!

Caroline, Scout, and Claire












After getting back home that evening, we did a few quick rounds of Dance Central... Ben and Emma have some sweet moves.. haha...




I took this video the day after Christmas of the girls dancing - they get really into it - we are really loving all the fun Kinect games... I was "skiing" with the girls this evening, and I really am worn out from it - it's surprisingly good exercise!



The girls showin' off some of their new clothes from Christmas, cute boots included! Jake got new church clothes this year because he's already so stocked up on day to day clothes... but he wanted to be in the picture too, being a goof

This is random, but I got these pictures of Adam and Emma with Santa while at the airport waiting for their flight to Washington D.C. - never seen such an enthusiastic Santa! haha...

12 Days of Christmas

I was needing some motivation to get going with pre-Christmas activities with the kids. Ben has been working a lot this month. Some months his schedule is lighter, with weekends off and getting home by dinner, but other months are 80+ hours a week, lots of overnight shifts, and only 4 days off for the month. Unfortunately, a busy work month landed in December. BUT, one of his 4 days off this month was Christmas Day, and I am SO thankful! Since Ben has been gone so much, I needed a little something to get me moving with fun stuff for the kids. It's easy to just skip out on a lot of the holiday parties and evening family Christmas activities, when my hubby is working - but that would have resulted in a sad December. Anyway, I changed up our 12 Days of Christmas tradition. For the past 4 or 5 years, I've wrapped up 12 small gifts (like dollar store or Target dollar items), and attached to each wrapped present is a scripture that points out a gift given from our Heavenly Father to us (like 'family', 'eternal life', 'prophets', 'the gospel', etc) - so we would read the scripture and talk about it, and then they would open the gift and share what was inside. Well, I was at the dollar store earlier this month wandering the isles (with Jake and Claire) picking up odds and ends to wrap up. I was almost done and about to head to the front to check out, and I thought to myself "I don't want all this dumb stuff!". So, I put it all back, and we went home to re-plan. I thought about my cute friend Melody and the great December-long advent tradition they do. I liked the idea of doing family activities more than opening dumb dollar store gifts. So I changed things up this year! And I'll definitely do it this way again next year.

I put together 12 envelopes and each evening we would open one up

Inside each envelope is a card with a scripture on the front and an activity listed on the inside


So, here's a list of the activities we did-

12- Candy cane craft
11- Gingerbread house
10- Christmas cards
9- Christmas books
8- Kierland Commons snowfalls
7- Dessert Fondue night
6- Nativity Finger puppets
5- Holiday minute-to-win-it
4- Christmas movie night
3- Christmas Tree campout
2- Visit Santa
1- Santa cookies and Advent at Grandma's

I was thankful for Melody's list she posted, because I was able to swipe so many ideas! :) So, here's a bunch of pics from some of the 12 days activities...











This is the second year we've gone to Kierland Commons for their soap bubble "snowfalls". The kids just love it! They also have free carriage rides, and pictures with Santa

Jake was refusing to wear his jacket... but in his defense, it wasn't that cold... that's Arizona winters for ya' :)

Emma was still in Washington D.C. during this outing... in case you were wondering if I lost one of my children



Hot chocolate face.. at the Starbucks next door





Nativity Finger Puppets

We did 3 games for our Holiday Minute to Win It night - 1. Toss the marshmallow through the wreath and into the bowl, 2. Put a gumdrop on your nose and try to get it into your mouth without using your hands, and 3. Balance candy canes on a string



Proof that Jake's a cheater

We visited Santa the day before Christmas Eve in Anthem. And while there we got the see the tallest real Christmas tree in the U.S. It was huge! 110 feet tall! The kids were in awe and wanted to know how they got ornaments put on the tree at the very top.





This ended up being Jake AND Becca's first time sitting on Santa's lap willingly. :) I was so proud of my kids!



Becca had her holiday program at her preschool last week and she was so cute. The kids each had a line to say and they sang a bunch of Christmas songs. Most of the time Becca sat all sweet with her legs crossed and her hands in her lap. I really love Becca :)





In case you can't hear her, Becca's line was "Would you please join us at our centers around the house now?"

Becca loved going around to all of the holiday centers with me...











Becca and her cute teacher, Mrs. Goodrich

We went to the zoo a few days before Christmas and met up with Ben's family (but Ben was at work, shucks... and Emma was actually still in school. Our district had school all the way through December 23rd! But they don't start up again till January 9th).


Becca and Adam rode the "Polar Slide". Last year Becca was too short, but this year she could ride, and she was SO excited!