Christmas recap

We are home from a great trip to Colorado for Christmas. My ENTIRE family was there, except for my oldest niece, who stayed in UT to work. It was so great to have everyone together for the holiday.

Things were busy, crazy, chaotic with all 18 members of my family staying at my parents house but it was SO fun too. We stayed plenty busy with things. Here's a quick recap of what we did:

Tons of sledding: It didn't snow while we were there but had snowed right before we arrived and the snow stuck around for the entire week!

Snuggling in G&Gs bed and watching lots of movies: Cousin Sleepovers (and very little sleep for those involved!):
Ice skating (first time for both big kids):

Lots of art projects (my sister is an art teacher and she always has the best ideas!):

(this was a shaving cream and food coloring tie dye project - very fun!)

WAY too much eating (I come from a family of foodies so there is always, always something amazing to eat):

(Allen and my BIL John making homemade scones on Christmas eve)

A night out to see the Christmas lights and go out for dessert:

(Lulu bundled up to see the Christmas lights)

Baking and Decorating Christmas cookies:

Lots of shopping:

(Addie got stuck on this rocking horse in the middle of Deseret Book - it was so cute!)

Tons of Basketball & Foosball games:

Our Traditional Christmas Eve Nativity Reenactment:
(Allen as Joseph, Makenna as Mary and Addie as Baby Jesus - we did not try to monopolize the holy family but no one wanted to be Mary or Joseph - aren't those the roles everyone is supposed to want?!?)(Carter as a wiseman along with my niece and nephew as the other wisemen)

And of course, the fun and chaos of Christmas morning:

(all the kids before coming down for present opening)


(Addison's first Christmas! Opening her stocking. The present opening was totally lost on her. She was so tired and we ended up just putting her back to bed and opening her presents for her. Kind of funny!)

(The tree before the unwrapping frenzy began)

Family Pictures:

(All the girls in the adorable cupcake aprons my mom made for us - even Addie got a teeny tiny apron - they are TOO cute)

Not pictured:

Tons of time playing board games

Lots of Wii (Carter is an amazing bowler, he bowled a 220 on one of his games)

Going to the movies (we saw Tales of Desperaux and Benjamin Button)

A quick visit/lunch with our CT friends the Crockett's

The big kids did so well on the drive - 14 hours each way. The kits were a HUGE hit and really did keep them quite busy on both the way there and back. Addie had a rough go of it and hated being in her seat but we did ok. It was well worth it for the time we were able to spend with my family!

Hope your Christmas was equally as merry! We are enjoying another week off of school/work and being lazy and having fun!

Days of Christmas: Week 3

I know I'm a bit early for this week but if I don't do it now, it won't be done. We're busy tying up all the loose ends for Christmas and recovering from a tummy bug (doesn't tummy bug make is sound cute? Yeah, it's been anything but cute around here - yuck!!)

Day 15: Make a Christmas craft: I combined this with our FHE on Monday night. We made this from the Children's friend. It was very easy to put together. We also watched Luke 2, which despite seeing at least 100 times (seriously, we showed this a lot during my mission), I still cried. Every. Single. Time. The kids loved the movie so we watched it twice!

Day 16: Help deliver neighbor gifts. I left Allen to do this with the kids since I was getting my hair done this night. I was SO impressed that they got them all delivered with all three kids in tow. Good job babe, and THANKS!


Day 17: Have your picture taken with Santa. Here it is! This year's Santa picture! It is getting harder to get a perfect Santa picture with three kids!




On a side note, we had this taken at the outlet mall near our house. They have an outdoor kids play area that the kids were playing in after pictures. We were all freezing so I got our jackets out of the car and then decided to check the temperature gauge on my car - it was 63 degrees and we were SO cold. Wimps, I tell ya!

Day 18: Help make a gift for your cousins. We made alphabet crayons for our cousins and the kids had a fun time helping. Remember those silicon alphabet molds? We filled those with broken crayons, melted them and then packaged them up cute! I've done these several times for birthday gifts and they are always a big hit!

Day 19: Watch a Christmas movie. Heh. Try, mom has too much to do and can't stop to think of something creative/fun for the day. We did attend Carter's class party so that was fun. Everyone still recuperating from the flu so we laid low again today.

Road Trip Kits

Since we have a rather long road trip coming up I decided to make road trip kits for the big kids. I've been wanting to do this for awhile and tackled it today. I'm so happy with how they turned out with minimal effort/money. If you wanted to, you could really go all out but I have some time/energy constraints right now.

Here's what I included:

Carter: Tic Tacs, box of animal crackers, gumballs, tic tac toe game, wooly willy magnet game (I so loved these as a kid), trivia cards, star wars coloring book, crayons, games.

Makenna: Tic Tacs, box of animal crackers, gumballs, tic tac toe game, hair do Hariet magnet game, note pad/pens, disney coloring book, crayons, games.

Along with their trinkets and treats, I made up some laminated road trip game cards. Here's a semi good closeup:

I printed up pictures of all the states' license plates and a road trip scavenger hunt. They can mark them off with a crayon and then we'll wipe them clean and start again.

All packaged up. I'm going to throw in a few dollars each for them to buy treats when we stop along the way, which I'm sure they'll love

This website has lots of fun printable road trip games and ideas: Moms Mini Van

I got the license plate pictures here: Fifty States License plates

Hopefully this will provide some distractions and fun and keep them from watching constant TV!

Days of Christmas: Week 2

Day 8: Have a Christmas FHE. We did the Teach the Children lesson that is so popular. I have an FHE packet from when I was in an FHE exchange group several years ago. It is a cute lesson. I also made these for some of my friends last year as our gift to them. You can see what I did last year in this post

Day 9: Finish Decorating your Gingerbread house. Even though we started our house during our ward party, the kids wanted to add some finishing touches. I got out all the leftover Halloween candy (we still have SO much) and let the kids go to town. We added some Nerds snow, a couple marshmallow snowmen and quite a few more decorations. {PS said Gingerbread house has already had the candy picked off and made it's way to the trash!!}

Day 10: Make Christmas colored play dough and cut out with Christmas cookie cutters (no picture but quite fun!)

Day 11: Watch a Christmas movie with a treat. This was day two of Allen being out of town so I took the easy way out. We got Chik Fil A for dinner and had a picnic on the floor while watching The Grinch. We finished it off with a super yummy peppermint chocolate chip milkshake!

Day 12: Make a Card for your teacher. The kids had a great time with my stamps and writing their teachers a nice note. I attached their cards to the teacher gift. This year we gave a box of popcorn, 2 movie theater boxes of candy and a Blockbuster gift card. It was simple and fun!

Day 13: Buy a gift for your siblings with Mom and Dad and help wrap them. This was SO fun for the kids. We took them to Wal Mart and had them pick gifts for each other. It was fun to be sneaky and hide in the toy department from each other. C & M chose the Horton hears a Who DVD for Addie; the girls are giving Carter a small Indiana Jones Lego set; Carter & Addie chose a Tinkerbell makeup set for Makenna. When we got home we wrapped the gifts and put them under the tree.
Day 14: Open and Read a new Christmas book. This year we added Curious George's Christmas and the Jan Brett version of 'Twas the Night before Christmas to our Christmas books collection. I finally have enough Christmas books to wrap them next year and have them open one per night for the entire month of December!

Scene from this morning

It's been one of those mornings. Addie is sick again. Poor thing. She just has not been her self the past few days. She won't eat and whines constantly unless she is being held. I took her to the doctor yesterday and they assured me she just has a cold. Early this morning when I went in to get her she was covered in throw up. I gave her a quick bath, changed and sanitized the crib and went to get the big kids up. Makenna had wet the bed (which has only happened a couple other times in her life) so I gave her a bath and stripped/sanitized her bed. We got Carter to school without further incident.

I got Miss A down for her morning nap and she promptly threw up again. So I started the routine of bathing, cleaning and sanitizing again. In the mean time, Makenna decided she was hungry and took matters into her own hands. This is what I found after I had gotten Addie cleaned up and back down for her nap:
I had already toasted the toast for her but she brought everything upstairs and had turned on a Disney Channel show. I so love this girl!

Poor Addie. I think sick babies are the saddest thing in the world. Worse than little kids since they can't communicate their needs. I hope she's on the mend!

Does anyone else feel like they're having a hard time prioritizing this holiday season?! I have SO many things to finish and find myself doing random non holiday related projects instead. Like scrubbing all the tile on my hands and knees last night at midnight. Or choosing yesterday to balance the checkbook that hasn't been touched in months. I have seriously GOT to get my act together!

Santa Letters

As promised, here are Carter and Makenna's letters to Santa. Makenna is my child who is 3 going on 13. The only thing she cares about getting this year is makeup. (She occasionally specifically adds lipgloss and jewelry. She is dying to get her ears pierced and we are working on Daddy) Cater:

(Translation: Dear Santa, why do you wear a red suit? Dear Santa, why do you have a big bag on your sleigh?)

Page 2:

Map from the north pole to my parents house. His list includes: Indiana Jones Legos (getting), Indiana jones lego toy (getting), Indiana Jones Video Game and Play Station 3 (not getting). How are the reindeer doing?

C really has his heart set on a video gaming system this year. We think he is still too young but are planning on it next year. Hopefully the system his cousins are getting will appease him for awhile!

And not to brag, but I'm so proud of him for his penmanship! He really writes so neatly and has worked hard on it this year!

Week of Parties/Days of Christmas

This week our holiday season got started with a BANG. Not only did we have fun with our DOC/Advent, we had a whole slew of holiday get togethers to keep us busy. I don't REALLY feel like blogging this morning but know I should get it done before I forget everything.

Advent/DOC: One of the things that I realize stressed me out about this last year was feeling like I needed a perfect picture to document everything. I've washed my hands of it this year. Some days I haven't taken a picture at all. Liberating, I tell you.

Day 1: Trim the Tree

Day 2: Make and Drink eggnog. I totally have to give the back story here. After this picture was taken, Carter's eggnog was thrown down the drain. He was being SO lippy (which is kind of his new and annoying thing) that I threw it away. And didn't give it back. The ensuing temper tantrum caused him to lose his books for the night. Just keeping it real. Even the best intentions don't always work out how you hope. The eggnog WAS good though!

Day 3: Drive around and look at lights. This was so easy but the kids had SO much fun doing this so I think we'll do it again one of these nights. It worked out great because we just did this on our way home from dinner. (No picture)

Day 4: Write a letter to Santa (No picture will scan later)

Day 5: Buy a gift for someone in need. This was the highlight of the week for me. I took the kids to the store between school and a bday party we were attending and had them pick out a gift for the ward giving tree. It was sweet to see them really think about what this child would like and weigh their options. We had a good talk in the store about why we help other people and that we show our thanks to Heavenly Father for our blessings by serving others. It went WAY better than I expected and I think we all felt the true spirit of Christmas. (No picture)

Day 6: Attend the ward Christmas party/ Open new pjs. The ward party was really fun and pretty low key. We decorated gingerbread houses, had a visit from Santa, made cards for the missionaries serving in our ward and had dessert. It was perfect! Matching pjs (of course):

Visit with Santa. Addie was freaking out! Hilarious! Working on our house: Day 7: Watch 1st presidency fireside with a treat (no picture)

This was also the week of parties. The fun started with a couple of my friends hosting a lunch for my birthday on Thursday. I have seriously GREAT friends here and it is such a blessing. We had YUMMO Mexican food, amazing desserts and I was more spoiled than you can imagine with gifts. (Thanks SO much sweet friends!!)

Thursday night was our Christmas Enrichment. More great food, a nice program in a beautiful environment.

Friday we had a birthday party and Al and I were supposed to attend a holiday happy hour for work. In the end we didn't end up at the happy hour because of babysitter issues but we still went out to dinner and I got a new outfit out of the deal. (Thanks to my awesome friend Kar for shopping with me and getting me out of my clothing comfort zone!)

This weekend was also our ward party and the family party for Al's company. Every year his company hosts a huge holiday on ice extravaganza (there are like 15,000 employees here in Phoenix so it is a big deal). Allen was asked to be a greeter this year so we got front row seats for the show. It was awesome! We were so close and got quite a bit of interaction from the performers (high 5's and the like). After the show they pass out gifts to all the kids based on their ages (they were VERY nice gifts). We were very impressed with the whole event and the kids had a great time!

This is how close we were (only the security guy was closer)

We only have a couple more holiday events this year so we really accomplished a lot this week!

Whew! I think I'm caught up (for now!)