Joy to the World!

We very clearly told Jared and Lydia they needed to come straight into our room Christmas morning and to not leave their rooms until 7:00.  At 7:02 they were in our room.  I am not sure what time they woke up but they did a great job following directions.  We snuggled in bed and watched the Church's "Joy to the World" video from a few years back and sang a few Christmas songs together.  We headed out to the front room to check out our stockings and eat some of our traditional orange rolls before getting ready for church. This year we were the recipients of another families Christmas tradition to bring breakfast to a family Christmas morning and were treated to eggs and sticky buns.  We had found a note and plate of cookies on our porch on Friday and had fun guessing who would be stopping by.  We made it to church with time to spare (very important to Mark. I hate being late but I don't need to be there 10 minutes early) and enjoyed great talks and beautiful music.  It was actually really nice to have a simple church service on Christmas morning and I'm glad it worked out that way. It was also really great to not have to teach a lesson!

I wish my hair curled under like this!! 

After church we came home and opened our presents.  We had a fun wrapping paper fight and enjoyed fun quiet afternoon enjoying our gifts and sending Jared and Lydia on their scavenger hunt.  We often wait until one of them remembers that we do it and then when they bring it up have fun with it.  It's nice to have gifts out and then some surprise ones they "work" for.  After the scavenger hunt we stopped by the fire station to deliver cookies and thank them for keeping us safe.  They were very friendly and invited us in to play on the trucks.  It was fun to chat with them and Jared and Lydia enjoyed climbing on the trucks.  We came home and put on White Christmas while we got dinner (ham of course) ready.  We tried to watch it 2 years ago I think and Jared and Lydia were not interested but this year they really enjoyed it. We put our last ornaments on our 25 Days of Christmas tree and had a very merry day together.

  We sent Jared all over the place this year for his clues which was really fun!

The church put out a really great Christmas initiative this year, "Light the world" and we started strong but didn't follow through as well as I would have liked.  This was kind of an odd year where I actually felt a lot of pressure to make our Christmas season super spiritual. Not a bad thing in any way but sometimes when I feel this way I actually just feel contrary and then do the opposite. I didn't quite do that but I really had a hard time wrapping my head around the fun things I love to do and the spiritual things I know I should do and should love to do.  I felt like the fun things were being presented as bad or not something I should do and it kind of irritated me.  It was a weird feeling that I can't quite explain and am doing a poor job of. Maybe it just felt more forced, I didn't just naturally feel the desire to do all the spiritual things one could do (all year) but especially at Christmas? I can't even give any real examples of things that happened to make me feel this way but I just felt kind off a lot of this season.  Sort of like all the articles out there about "mom pressure" or rather about not judging other moms.  I haven't really dealt with that much since I have been a mom, I've just done my own thing but that is the best description I can come up with.  I did really like a comment a speaker made yesterday at church. She talked about how she can see clear times in her life where she chose to distance herself from Christ by not doing the things we know we should do and it really resonated with me.  Some of that has been going on and maybe that affected my Christmas feelings? It's something to think about and re-evaluate.

We did have a great Christmas and spent a lot of time together as a family which was really nice. They are the best most lasting gift and will always be my favorite.  I am grateful for the moments I could feel the Christmas spirit and believe Mark, Jared and Lydia did too.

Christmas Season wrap up

December was a great month. We had a lovely Christmas season and a great Christmas day. For FHE this week we drove over to Afton VA to visit Hebron church's Bethlehem village with some friends.  It is so impressive to me that this church hosts this event each year.  We paid our taxes, heard the angels sing and found an inn with no room.  We enjoyed visiting and experiencing a live nativity. My favorite part was hearing the angels sing to the shepherds and then seeing the shepherds run to the manger.  Jared and Lydia loved the Roman Jail... either way we all enjoyed ourselves.

Mark and Lydia ready to pay their taxes.  

I somehow deleted most of the pictures I took.  Which was a bummer and really unlike me.

We like to go and check out the lights at the Washington DC temple each year so we drove up on Thursday to check them out.  Mark took Jared and Lydia over to the park again while I was in the temple and I hung out with them in the visitors center while Mark was inside.  It was cold and windy in the afternoon and then when Mark came out and we went to walk around the grounds to enjoy the lights the wind calmed down and the weather was great which was really lucky. My phone died quickly and then Mark's soon after that so we really didn't get any really great pictures of the lights which made me sad but it was also nice to just enjoy the beauty of the lights. My pictures never do beautiful scenes justice anyway so I often wonder why I bother to take pictures but Jared and Lydia love looking at pictures of our adventures so I will keep at it.  We ran into and chatted with the Player's while checking out the lights which was fun.

I've seen lots of friends who live out here post their pictures of the lights and its been fun to see their perspectives, the pretty spots they found and their joy in being their with their families.

Lydia's favorite tree

Jared's favorite

This year we ended up staying the night in DC which was a fun treat for Jared and Lydia.  Mark found a great deal for the hotel and it had a heated pool so Jared and Lydia were thrilled. It was nice to be able to go to the temple and then have time the next day to go into DC.  I had to work Friday night so we didn't stay too long but had a fun morning in the city. We went into DC our first December here and made sure to hit up the most recommended Christmas sights then so this year we tried to find some less known places to go for Christmas lights. The best find was The Basilica of the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception.  
Some fun facts about it: (thank you wikipedia) 

The shrine is the largest Catholic church in the United States and North America
One of the ten largest churches in the world
The tallest habitable building in Washington, D.C.

While much "younger" than the churches Mark and I were able to visit while living overseas it was really great to go see it with Jared and Lydia.  They were respectful, asked great questions and enjoyed seeing a different type of church. There were over 50 Christmas trees on display and hundreds of poinsettias, it was beautiful. I'm so glad we went. 

We stopped by the Library of Congress which had a large beautiful tree in the lobby and went to the young readers room for the first time which was nice.  We also stopped into the Museum of American History.  Jared has been asking and reading a lot about US History so it was was fun to take him there and let him feed his interest for History. Lydia could have skipped most of the museum but did have fun in the newer kids lab and play center so it was a win overall. We checked out the First Ladies exhibit which I don't think we had before and it was fun. I love how you can always find new things at the Smithsonian's. 

Jared was thrilled when we found the money exhibits. 

Tired kids!  This was minutes before we stopped to eat lunch. Oh well, we didn't really want them sleeping very much on the drive home. It also looks really uncomfortable. Lydia "pushed" Jared off and readjusted herself pretty quickly.

Saturday we went to a fun Christmas Eve brunch with some great people and enjoyed delicious food and visiting.  I love the idea of a Christmas Eve brunch, so fun. Mark's mom's birthday is on Christmas day and every year her parents let her have friends over for brunch for her birthday Christmas morning which I think was such a great way to help her feel rememebred/special on her birthday.  She still holds it to this day each year.  Brunch is great! We didn't stay too long as I needed to get home and bake some cookies for our Christmas Eve festivities.  Christmas Eve night we had friends over for cookie decorating and our nativity sing/read along and had a lovely time. I'm so glad we started this tradition last year and plan to keep it up for many years.  Its such a perfect blending of my family traditions from when I was a child and Mark's. Jared and Lydia opened their gifts from each other that afternoon, (they have been so anxious to open presents!) and we made sure to read "Twas The Night Before Christmas" before bed. Mark and I filled stockings and wrote out Jared and Lydia's scavenger hunt clues (what we do instead of gifts from Santa they love it) then headed to bed by 10:00!

This picture makes me happy. It is for sure one of my new favorite pictures. She is the sweetest. 

Even though this Fall/holiday season, my most favorite time of year has been a little different for us with me working at night, I am grateful for the fun we had and the memories we made.  We have lovely friends and wonderful kids and more then we could ever need. 

Still having fun

I uploaded some pictures tonight and am really grateful for the life we have.  Jared and Lydia have really been enjoying each others company lately and we have been having fun doing our Christmas traditions and just hanging out at home.  For Home Evening this week we went out to look at lights and give out our award. This is still one of my favorite traditions. Jared and Lydia love that hey get to bring their blankets in the car and wear pajamas.  This year I posted our choice on Facebook and the couple we went with for the very first time (8 years ago in Greeley CO) commented that they went out Monday night too and posted their choice.  It was fun.  This year we headed North towards Barboursville and found some great houses. Lydia and I had gone to play at a friends house there and driven past a house that had tons of old school figurines in the yard so I knew we wanted to check it out at night.  I had also seen an article online about a house that had a long tradition of awesome lights since 1989.  They stopped for the last few years as the family member who loved the lights the most was very sick and then passed away.  This year they decided to put them up again in remembrance. Their lights were awesome.  They set up parking on their land and on Friday and Saturday nights they have free food and hot chocolate and a visiting Santa.  We weren't there for that but we had fun walking around their yard.  On their property they set up a shed and fill it with Santa figurines and they invite you into their basement (there is an outside entrance) to see their collection of angels.  A whole room filled with Angel figurines. It was amazing. I am so glad I saw the article and we drove out there.  The house we picked for the award was just down the street from them.  It was a fun night. 

2016 Best Christmas Lights Winner

It always surprises me how much Jared enjoys doing the activities I plan for preschool.  I adapt them for him, so they are at his level and he really looks forward to them.  Often when we have talk time at night he wants to hear about what we did in preschool. I wonder if he remembers doing activities like this when he was little?  I hope so!  We played reindeer races, decorated a painters tape tree with ornaments, and played jingle bell toss.  We also decorated sugar cone Christmas trees.  Gingerbread houses are nice and really fun but in my personal opinion they are a big expensive headache too!  They rarely stay together and you have to spend a lot of time and money on them.  A few years ago I started doing these trees and I love them.  Super easy and cute too. 

Practicing addition and subtraction

Practicing beginning sounds and coming up with words that began with those sounds. 

Jingle Bell Toss

Sugar cone Christmas trees.  

I found this cute worksheet online that had them count how many "ornaments" of each color they put on the tree.  It was nice to extend the activity some, learning can be fun! 

We went over to the library one day with some friends and made paper bag gingerbread house.  The last few years they have supplied pre-made houses to decorate but this year they went with a craft and Jared and Lydia didn't even seem to mind not doing a candy one.  They had fun supplies on hand and had a fun time.  We also went to a UVA basketball game.  Mark can get really into a game which is always fun to see.  Lydia had fun but would probably not ask to go again at this point but Jared had a great time.  I like going to them and am sure we will go at least once each year. It was fun to watch Jared get really into the game too. We also got together with some really fun people and went Caroling.  I am happy we get to go especially since Mark grew up caroling with one of the families we go with.  It's just so funny that their families hung out frequently in Turlock while they were growing up and now they live 12 minutes away from each other, completely across the country from where they grew up.  It was great to go with the Players, Hong's, and Papin's. All really great families. 

Lydia is super into penguins right now and was thrilled when she saw they had these stickers.  

UVA played Robert Morris and blew them out of the water!  They won by 40 or more points.  It was nice to see them do well but a little more competition would have been nice. 

We've made lots of fun cookies and Mark participated in a cookie exchange at school.  The teacher who arranged it told Mark he could only participate if he brought these mint brownies I made for St Patricks day.  Mark loves them so he was happy to ask if I would do it.  Last Sunday was a little over the top with baking and singing.  Mark participated in a community concert and ended up singing with 2 different choirs.  I made the brownies for the school exchange and then 4 dozen cookies for the concert.  I have been to this concert twice now and while the performers do a very nice job I have decided that it is not really my scene.  I just don't really like their song selections.  I was tempted to stay home and get Jared and Lydia, who was fighting a cold to bed on time but Mark really wanted us to come hear him sing.  We stayed for his first performance and then went home.  We also made Christmas tree waffles which are always a big hit. I mean they have M&M ornaments on them so there is no way they can't be a hit. Mark was happy to participate in the cookie exchange.  It was kind of funny as 2 of his students saw a sign for it in the teachers lounge and asked Mark if they could participate too.  He said sure, and gave them the instructions.  They came and he helped get them a selection of cookies.  What he really liked was that these 2 girls were happy to share their cookies from the exchange with all the students in the class.  They just offered them to all the kids, nobody even had to ask.  It sounded really sweet when Mark told me about it.  They asked if they could do an exchange every month! Its nice to hear stories like this. Mark has had a rough semester with these kids and is looking forward to new classes next semester. 

It is always so rewarding when Jared and Lydia can just enjoy playing with each other.  They read together,  pretend to be reindeer who can turn into killer whales (Jared is really into killer whales right now) pulling Santa's sleigh (running down the halls and sliding in their pajamas), building forts (making a big mess), playing preschool or library and just enjoying each other.  They are creative and awesome kids and I love seeing them together and hearing what they come up with. 

Jared has also been very into history/geography lately so I got some books at the library. Here he is explaining things to Lydia before school one morning.  Mark's Mom tells a story of how Mark's brother David would get Mark out of his crib early in the morning and lay next to him on the floor and read the sports section to him as a baby.  Mark loved to look at atlas's when he was growing up so its fun to see Jared interested in them. He is always asking us to tell him about historic events which is fun for us since we are big fans of history. 

Fun story: I got these stools and rolling cart from a sweet family who is moving soon.  I am not sure what I will do with them, I just really liked them.  In the meantime, Lydia has completely taken them as her own.  Here she is writing some thank you notes after church and later in the day she and Jared filled the cart up with library books and wheeled it around the house.  I often find the stools randomly placed around the house as she has moved them all over the place.  I am pretty sure she would love to have them in her room! I sent this picture to the family and she commented that Lydia was problem a future teacher.  She does often say she wants to teach preschool and work at Kohls sounds pretty familiar.  Funny girl.  We will see where she ends up! 

Just one more week till Christmas!  The presents are all wrapped and we have just a few more things we want to attend.  Mark was very kind and wrapped 2/3 of the presents. He wrapped then I added the bows.  It was nice to do it together. We are planning on attending the Bethlehem Village tomorrow night and driving up to the temple Thursday, staying the night then going into DC Friday probably to the American History Museum. Christmas Eve, friends are coming over to decorate cookies and sing songs and I am looking forward to it.  What a fun Christmas season it has been!  We have our struggles but we truly live a blessed life and I am incredibly grateful.