December Rerun

OK, on to December and the fun we had during it. This is the most low key Christmas I have ever pulled off and it made the season so much nicer. Everyone we know got the same present which we bought back in May, I was done shopping, wrapping, Christmas carding, etc. before Thanksgiving and just enjoyed the season (other than being a business owner which often makes me want to curse at this time of the year).

Here is some of what we did. On a whim one day I decided we should make gingerbread houses out of graham crackers. We just used stuff we had in the house. I guess this is Dal's idea of posing nicely for a picture:

Jack really got into this activity. And yes, that is food around his mouth from eating his art:

Nathan's house:

I had a Santa hat photo shoot for our Christmas cards and it left me with all kinds of great pictures of this guys. 

I'm in love...

I'm in Love....

And I don't care who knows it! 

Seeing Santa. I wish Nathan had you know, thought to look at the camera. I love the face Dal is making and made the whole time he was on Santa's lap. He kept his eyes averted and leaned out to avoid too much contact with the big guy.

 Christmas Eve of course included acting out the nativity. My favorite part is Sam the Lamanite who we attempted to slay with marshmallows. Nice of him to play that role, but hey, when your name is Sam, you HAVE to play Samuel the Lamanite right?

And last, the big day:
Adventure is out there! Tell me that those aren't the coolest Explorer hats you have ever seen?!? Aunt Natalie A. rocks!

It was our first time having Christmas completely by ourselves. It was pretty nice. Very relaxing. We built A LOT of legos. We watched movies, we played games. But by 5:00 we were wondering if the day was EVER going to end.

I love that in this picture Dal is very slyly checking to see what Jack is doing. In the next picture he was, of course, making the same face. 

November Highlights

Wow, not only has it been a while since I really blogged, but I even forgot about doing many of the things that I took pictures of. This is why I blog. So that in years to come I can remember the fun I had with my little kiddos.

Looking back to the month of November, here are some of the highlights.

The boys had a short week-I can't remember but I think it was a 3 day week-followed by half days for one full week, followed by the whole week off for Thanksgiving. I love having my kids home and I like to have some plans for fun activities to help us fill our days. Here are two things we did:

We learned about "Pointilism" and some artist who used to do art in this style. Obviously it was an engaging lesson since I don't even remember the artist's name, but we had fun and that's what counts.

Dallen's masterpiece (ok, maybe he didn't get the pointillism part, but still, pretty impressive for a two year old huh?)

 

Jack's Work:

 

Nathan's creation:

And the real reason I am even posting about this-so that I can demonstrate my mad art skillz. I mean come on, this baby should be in a museum or something....right?

Second, we made a balloon version of the solar system (idea courtesy of my friend Liz who home schools. I love to see ideas of fun things she does with her kids and then do them myself.)

This is a very rough estimate of the planet sizes in relation to each other and then strung up in order:

 And truthfully, those are the last cool things we have done for a while. 

But then, Grammy and Grampa came to visit along with Josh's sister and her hubby and son for Thanksgiving. It was so much fun. Someone commented to me that they couldn't believe my mother in law was staying for like 10 days. I have to say I am totally cool with it. I like my in laws. A lot. Plus she did all the laundry the whole time she was here. :) 

Here is Gramps with Dal and cousin Danny who are just 7 months apart in age. (And finally one of my nephews at least knows who Aunt Amber is.)

 On Thanksgiving evening we kept with our yearly tradition of a Polar Express Party. Complete with Josh dressing up funny and leading the whole gang around the house in a "train ride" for which they need tickets (which he of course punches). Following that we (or should I say the boys because the rest of us can't stomach it) watch the movie including a break for hot chocolate presented by their tap dancing mama at the hot chocolate scene. This is one of our best Christmas traditions.

Christmas Memories

I know I haven't blogged in a long time. Soon I will catch up. My computer which was dead and has my photo program on it was in the shop and now it is back-I just need to upload some photos to it. (In the meantime we had to buy a new computer.)

It's Christmas Eve and before I go to bed I wanted to record a few sweet things that I know I will want to remember in years to come.

This is Dal's first year of "getting" Christmas which has been an absolute blast so far. Today he was making up his own Christmas songs that went something like this "It's a light Christmas song!" or "It's a pumpkin Christmas song!" followed by a "sing with me mommy."

When I asked him what he thought Santa would bring him he said "I don't know." When I asked him what he hoped Santa would bring him he said "maybe clothes." :) Bet he would be thrilled with new clothes.

Tonight we acted out the Nativity. For the 5th year in a row Jack played the baby Jesus. He has a very tender heart and loves babies and so he always wants to be baby Jesus. The kid is sort of busting out of the manger, we may have to move him into a new role soon, but for now we let him play it.

Dallen, when asked which part he wanted to play, insisted that he wanted to be Mary. I tried to explain that Mary is a girl but he wouldn't relent. He figured once he "turned a girl" he could play Mary. After some talking tonight we finally had him being "Daddy Mary."

Nathan was our angel in the nativity, as always. Poor Nathan isn't feeling good at all so he wasn't a big part of tonight's fun. Still, he was sweet as always. When he opened his new jammies the reaction was great. "Thanks mom and dad-These jammies are so cute. Oooh, I love them. Thanks so much!" Then he wrote a letter to Santa that said "Don't you think it's a joy on this blessed season to know on Easter Jesus died and was born for us." He has a beautiful testimony and a great heart.

I love my family. This was a perfect Christmas Eve. We miss our families but we are so happy to be together as our own little family this year (and having Cousin Laura, Sam and Uncle Mike over tonight was icing on the cake.)