Merry Christmas!

We started off Christmas Eve morning with a special picnic. I made some very easy reindeer's out of donuts. (Mini chocolate donuts + pretzel pieces for antlers + red M & M's.) It was fun to start the day with something special. Lydia really just wanted the red M & M's which was not a huge surprise but I thought she would be more excited about the chocolate donuts too.

We spent Christmas Eve at our friends the Pitcher's house. It was nice to visit with them  They moved from our ward last April so it was great to see them. We had a delicious dinner and a sweet Christmas message. Once we got home we got the kids ready for bed and completed our Nativity (or atvitiy as Jared called it all month). They had been wanting to put the baby Jesus in for a long time and were thrilled to place Him on there.

 CHRISTMAS EVE!

We read "Twas the night before Christmas" as our Christmas story that night and sent them to bed so we could fill the stockings. We hadn't really done stockings with our kids before this year. Last year we ordered some personalized ones from the after Christmas sale and I loved having them up this year. I have always wanted matching personalized stockings.

We actually had a very relaxed Christmas morning.  Jared came into our room around 7:15 to wake us up. We then got Lydia and sang some Christmas hymns together all snuggled in our bed. We also watched the new nativity video on lds.org.  Then we went downstairs and ate our traditional orange rolls for breakfast. Around 8:30 we began opening stockings and presents.

After we had all opened our presents under the tree we told Jared and Lydia about their scavenger hunt.  We wrote up three clues for each kid that led them to their present. We started this tradition last year with Jared and really enjoyed it. They each had a clue waiting for them on the tree.  We read it to them and then they found the next one. Lydia went first. 

She loved it and did really well figuring out the clues.  

Then Jared: 

It was so fun to see them get their surprises. Jared go this firefighter pretend outfit and Lydia got a Little People doll house. We hope to keep the tradition up each year. We will have to make the clues more difficult as we go. 

They had a great time playing with their toys and were very pleased with them. Jared's favorites were his "Giant excavator" (his words) and his Play Doh Garbage Truck.  Lydia's favorites were her doll house and her shopping cart. Jared only had one major melt down when Lydia wanted to try out one of his new toys. We repeatedly talked about how important it was to share.  We kept reminding him that if he was going to play with Lydia's toys he needed to let her use his and really he just needed to share.  They also had a great time playing in the wrapping paper. 

We had a delicious "fancy" dinner of ham, funeral potatoes, stuffing, pineapple and rolls with some "tickly" to quote Jared, sparkling cider. It really was a wonderful day.  We loved begin together and had so much fun this month.  

Our last big Christmas activity was this special Christmas bath.  They had fun painting with the candy cane paint and decorating their little trees. 

This was the best family photo we could get on Christmas Sunday. Lydia was not in the mood to take pictures but they sure looked cute in their Christmas outfits. 

Santa picture and more Christmas fun.

A new Bass Pro Shop opened up here about a month ago. We are not sportsman by any stretch of the imagination but thought it could be a warm fun place to check out. We had heard they had a fun fish tank and that children could get a free photo with Santa. (I know those are not related at all) We have never actually had our children have their picture taken with Santa today was the first time. It just isn't a big Christmas tradition for either Mark or I. We decided to play it by ear once we got to the store. If Jared was interested in meeting Santa and wanted to wait in the line we would. We got there, asked him and he decided he wanted to.  The line was not terribly long at all and they were super organized.  Jared and I talked about the decorations they had up and what he could say to Santa and he did great. He was so grown up about it in a sweet sort of way.  He told Santa he wanted a giant excavator for Christmas and then wished Santa a Merry Christmas. 

It probably helped that we watched Polar Express last night and talked a lot about Santa.  We have also been reading 5-7 Christmas books each day for the last month and there have been a lot of kids visiting Santa. We watched Polar Express last year too and thought he would love it as that was the height of his love for trains but he didn't really get into it. This year he watched the whole movie while sipping his hot chocolate.  Even Lydia watched most of the movie, it was probably one of our more successful family movie nights! 

We also had some more Christmas fun around the house. We've played with our Christmas sensory beans, did a candy cane experiment, made messy puffy Christmas trees and took a Christmas Candle bath. 

Our candy cane experiment was fun. The first bowl was filled with baby oil, the second cold water, the third hot water. We put a candy cane in each bowl and waited to see what happened. Nothing happened with the baby oil.  The red stripes fade away in the other ones.  Can you guess which one they faded the fastest in? They also enjoyed munching on candy canes while we watched. 

We love making project with puffy paint. (Glue and shaving cream) I haven't done very many (if any) with Lydia and she thought it was super fun and got super messy. Which was the point. They decorated their trees with sequins and lots and lots of glitter.  Then had fun playing in the mixture.  We wrote letters and drew snowmen and Christmas trees. 

Mark got this super fancy candle from a teacher at school. Once it is lit it starts changing colors. Jared and Lydia were mesmerized by it.  We lit it while we were eating dinner last night. Since they liked it so much we decided a Christmas candle bath would be lots of fun. We rounded up all our Christmas candles and put them in the bathroom. It is a pretty cool candle. It turns red/orange, blue, and pink/purple.  I promise they are in the tub its just hard to find them.

While being ill has been pretty miserable (I am the last one still feeling it.  Mark, Jared and Lydia seem to be all better which is awesome.) it has been fun to spend time at home and find Christmas activities to do. We talked to some friends last night and we are going to spend Christmas Eve with them. The past few days we have had this cool freezing fog.  The fog rolls in and blocks the sun so everything gets all frosty. It looks like a pretty winter wonderland until the sun does break through and melts it all.  I went out this morning to try to take a few pictures because anytime the trees get frosted I always wish I had a camera with me.  I wish I could take our family pictures with this as the background but it is kind of hard to schedule an appointment for the day after there is freezing fog. 

Our garland looked so pretty all frosted. I think this is the closest we will get to snow this Christmas. I love how everything looks all frosted over. 

Some Christmas Cheer

Even though we are still a little sick over here we managed to find some Christmas cheer today which was much appreciated.  Sadly I woke up on Sunday with a cough and sore throat, I fell as the last holdout.  I was filling in for the RS teacher and by the end of the lesson I had no voice so we had to cancel our caroling party.  That was a bummer.  Jared and Lydia seemed all better Sunday morning but Lydia woke up with a terrible runny nose and super sad/tired eyes Monday and Jared has a bad cough. But today it was 64 degrees outside so we took advantaged of that and went out.

For awhile now I have been thinking about having  Jared and Lydia pick out a toy and then donate it so we could talk about helping others in need and good things like that so today we did it. When I was growing up we often picked a name off the "angel trees" in the mall and bought presents for the person described on it. We got some toys and then went to drop them off at the Police station.

It was a great teaching opportunity and I was so happy when Jared mentioned giving to others at the police station in his prayer tonight. They enjoyed dropping the toys in the box and didn't even seem sad to be giving the toy away and not getting it themselves. It was sweet. It may even take over as my favorite Christmas tradition.

We also went out and handed out the "Best Christmas Lights Award". I LOVE doing this each year. Jared and Lydia loved seeing the lights. Lydia kept saying "more more more!" as we drove around the neighborhoods. Once we found our house we went up to the door to give the certificate and bag of candy. I am never nervous exactly (I mean really I am never going to see them again) but always wonder how the family will react. This year they invited us right in and were so happy to receive the award. No one is ever mad most are just surprised. We went inside for a few minutes and the inside of the house was amazingly decorated. You could tell they really enjoy decorating and took pride in their work. It was great. They also had these three dogs so Jared and Lydia were in heaven. They were so friendly.  They said they would have to add even more lights next year to see if they could win again! Cute! They had beautiful garlands and wreaths and a huge Christmas tree with beautiful bows on the porch. I was looking at the last few years houses and they all look sort of similar.  I just really like a nice cohesive put together look. Some people would probably pick the person who put the most lights up but I guess we prefer it to look put together. Although as Jared and Lydia get older the "look" of the winner may change. Mostly we just like seeing all the lights and bringing a little Christmas cheer.

We also got some Christmas cards in the mail (6 in one day!) so I could finally start using our fancy new card display. It made me ridiculously happy. While my Mom was here we were all talking about ways to display cards and brainstormed together and came up with this:

 I Love it. I picked out a festive ribbon (yes it took me forever there were so many to choose from) some mini clothespins (I love miniature things) and a cute topper.  It was super cheap and easy. My kind of project. Now I just need some more cards!

Since we are still sick our appetites have been greatly diminished. Nothing sounds good to eat or cook so we have been eating more breakfast foods.  Poor Lydia doesn't want to eat anything at all it seems. We made egg nog pancakes with sprinkles and Christmas tree waffles. I love all the fun things you can do with pancakes and they are so easy to make!

Look at those sad eyes….

I can't believe Christmas is a week away. I am so happy we could go out and have some fun today in the beautiful weather. It is supposed to get much colder this weekend. There is even snow forecasted for Christmas day but only a 40% chance. That would be lovely! We think we are just going to go check out the zoo lights after Christmas.  We may reschedule caroling for this Sunday which I would like to do. We will just have to see how everyone feels. I sure hope we feel better by then! Each night when we read our Christmas story and read our scripture for our Nativity my voice starts going out. Singing songs before bed has been a sorry affair around here this past week. This Saturday is our ward Christmas dinner so we are planning on attending even though I really do not enjoy these activities. They are so crazy! (What a grump right? They just aren't my thing) The senior missionaries are planning it and they have been filming all the primary kids and asking them what they like most about Christmas. Jared said presents (no surprise there) and when they asked if Lydia would say anything we said she might say Baby and she did so it will be cute on the video. They are cute kids even when they are miserable.  Hope we feel better really soon!

Change in plans

Mark, Jared and Lydia are all sick. Mark left work half way through the school day on Thursday and didn't go in on Friday. The three of them are really achy, have chills, coughs and some kind of stomach bug. I am feeling extremely fortunate that I haven't gotten this bug. Yesterday Jared slept from around 9:00 in the morning till 11:30 then again from like 2:00 until 3:00 and all night. He is just exhausted. This is basically how our day went. We read a lot of stories, watched some shows and cuddled a lot which was really sweet.

Lydia was doing fine but woke up sick this morning. She looks so exhausted and sad. We were planning on going to the zoo to check out the Christmas lights but will put that off till next week. I also organized a caroling party for Sunday night with some friends and may be the only member of my family present. Which is funny because we are meeting at our house. Oh well.  Life happens. I just hope everyone feels better soon. It's so sad when everyone else feels so poorly.

I do have some fun pictures from previous days before everyone got sick.

For my birthday I got some comfy brown boots (above) and some fun black boots. My Mom also bought Lydia some cute black boots. She loves to wear hers and mine. Since I was trying boots on at the store Mark was helping Lydia with hers. Once she got them on it was next to impossible to get them off of her. When I ask her to go put her boots on she always says "Daddy boots, Daddy boots." Its cute.

Here she is in one of her cute Christmas outfits from Marmee, complete with said boots. She wore this to church last week and the nursery leader came over and told me she wanted Lydia's skirt.  She was impressed with my Mom's fashion sense. (We really love our Nursery leader she is so sweet with Jared and Lydia. She always brings Jared little treats and toys. We saw her at tithing settlement today and she said Jared was still her favorite. I love stories like this about my kids)

What else? Mark had been (until he got sick) diligently trying to recreate Chick-Filets amazing Peppermint Chocolate Chip milkshakes. I LOVE these shakes. They are beyond amazing. I look forward to them every December. He made this one last week and it was so close to theirs. I can't wait to have some more and get to drink them after they stop selling them!

The other day at the store I found some cute Christmas glow sticks and so we had a special glow stick bath. Last time we tried a glow stick bath Lydia freaked out and would not get in the water with the glow sticks. She didn't even want them near her when she was out of the bath. This time she loved them and they had a lot of fun with them. 

We also made some fun pancakes and tried out a new learning time activity.

Filling in Santa's beard with marshmallows with number recognition. Jared and Lydia liked the snowman pancake but really liked the marshmallows as snow.  After Lydia ate hers she kept signing "more more" like crazy which is funny because she can actually say more really clearly now but maybe she was too excited.  I am looking forward to everyone feeling better soon so we can go do fun things outside of the house too! And just so our house will be a littler happier.

Christmas thus far...

It has been FREEZING here the past week. Like out of control don't go out unless you have to. It is currently 2 degrees and feels like -12.  We haven't checked the mail for 3 days. This whole week has been pretty much like that often even colder. School has been canceled or on a 2 hour delay the last 3 days around here. We rarely have weather like this and I am so grateful. Of course it gets cold here but not like this.So since the weather has been preventing us from going anywhere we have had plenty of fun inside. A day or so after Thanksgiving I put up this photo on Facebook:

and mentioned how we we're ready for Christmas with our decorating, shopping and wrapping, and Christmas cards done. I love decorating right after Thanksgiving so we can enjoy the whole month being together not trying to get things done. In October I gave a short class at our Super Saturday on "Keeping Christ in Christmas and Easter" and besides some activities that were Christ centered my main points were to:
1. Don't plan too many activities that everyone is overwhelmed or stressed. Prioritize what matters most.
2. Set realistic expectations. Don't expect everything to be perfect or for everyone to love each activity.
3. Plan Ahead: get as much done ahead as possible.
When I think about Christmas I rarely remember what I was given especially when I was young (although I am sure it was great) but I do remember what we did.
So I took my own advice and used any extra time I had to look up lots of fun Christmas themed activities with some learning thrown in. We have put them to good use this week and will use them the whole month see: plan ahead!  (I don't want to steal other people's creativity so all these ideas were found online and are here on THIS Pinterest board)

We have learned with :
Hershey Kisses and M&M's

 Matching upper and lower case letters.

 I wrote Uppercase on the bottom of the kisses and lower case on the paper. There were of course some blank ones thrown in.

 Roll and decorate a Christmas tree with M&M ornaments.  

Each number is assigned a color and when Jared rolls it with the dice he finds the color it is and finds it on the tree. He gets to eat one if he rolls doubles.

 Jingle Bell Math: Jared and Lydia love jingle bells so they thought it was pretty cool.

Writing numbers practice and counting.

 Look at that face! Learning CAN be fun.  

Simplified for Lydia. 

 Big and Small comparisons with stockings. Lydia was just as good at Jared at this. They loved filling the stockings up.

Color Sorting with Bows:

Candy Cane Scented Play Doh.
It was fun to see the colors mix in as they played with it and it smelled so good too.

Jared's Favorite: Wrapping Gifts. I took leftover wrapping paper and put in a box with some extra bows. Jared is constantly wrapping up his toys and giving them to us. I love that he is learning about giving and doing it hands on.

Countdown Chain. We made this right after Thanksgiving. It has been so helpful for the many times Jared asks if it Christmas yet. I simply direct him to the chain so he can see for himself. He is asking less and less which is nice. He and Lydia rotate days taking off a link.

You can also see that we have been spending a fair amount of time in our pajamas this week. Its so cold I just didn't see the need to get them dressed and they do have super cute pajamas currently. My Mom got these for them. 

I love them. I love this time of year. I love planning these activities (and more Christ centered ones these were just for our learning time). I love the Internet and the creative people out there. And I love having the opportunity to teach my kids and spend the day with them, that I get to do these things with them because I have the chance to be with them. Not that I don't still need to get out of the house often and enjoy nap time a great deal. Tomorrow it will be 15 degrees so we are getting out of the house! This post makes me feel like one of the bloggers I love to get ideas from so that is kind of fun too.  All these activities were so simple and affordable.  I had all theses things around the house. It's great. It's been really fun to see Jared and Lydia excited for these learning activities and it has helped keep us busy and happy!