December

We had a great December.  We got a little Advent house with doors from Target 2 years ago.  Last year I just had little treats and such in each door, but this year we had treats and an activity for each day and it made it so fun!  That is definitely a tradition we will keep for years to come.  The activities usually weren't anything big, things like make Christmas cookies to take to neighbors, watch a Christmas movie, look at lights, go to ward Christmas party, read a specific Christmas book, make mint hot chocolate and have with grasshopper cookies, decorate tree was one of the first ones, etc.  It made the whole month so much fun. 

This year we were going to Boise for Christmas, but we got some bigger items for the kids and we didn't want to have to take them to Boise and all the way back, so we arranged to have Santa come to our house a week early.  That was great because it came early so the kids were whining about it for one week less!  We decided to do it a whole week early so they would have time to play with their gifts for a bit before leaving and it just worked better to have it on a weekend anyway. Then we went to Boise on the 23rd and came back on the 1st.  We had a great time playing with the family as usual.  My next post will be just from while we were in Boise.

Cold weather arrived in December.  We had a few days of below zero temps.  One morning I went out to start  Michael's car for him and I found this in his car from the day before.  Brrr....

I don't know why this is so washed out, but it is the only picture I got of Carter on Santa's lap.  This was our advent activity for the day.  Emory would have NOTHING to do with Santa.  Carter told Santa he wanted a tarantula!  Santa was VERY surprised and gave me a funny look.  Wish I'd gotten a picture of that!

Carter's Preschool class made these cute little ornaments!  I LOVE it!  It says "Naughty or Nice"

This is his naughty face on the back side of the ornament.  Such a cute idea!

Emory likes to walk around in my shoes.  There is a picture of me about this same age in my scrapbook  doing the same thing and Emory looks so much like me it is crazy!

My first attempt at gingerbread cookies.  Not the best....those are some chubby little men. :)  We needed some more flour .  I haven't quite gotten used to adapting recipes for our high elevation here.

They tasted delicious though!

I was trying to get a good Christmas picture of the kids to put in the calendars I was making for the grandparents.  I think this ended up being the best.

This little series makes me laugh...not because Carter is crying, but look at Emory!  Her little pose.  I didn't  tell her to put her hand on Carter's shoulder.  

Not even 1 minute later Carter is fine and dandy.  Kids crack me up...and drive me crazy. 

All month long Carter loved pretending he was Santa.  This is shortly after I accidentally put the 2 back on the razor  instead of switching to the 5 for the top of Mike's hair.  Oops!! Lucky he is a good sport and didn't care too much.

Our Christmas morning...well the night before while everything was all set up. 

Our Christmas night we set the kids up with their new chairs to watch a show on the iPad.

I love peeking in and seeing this sight.  

She wanted to take her nap in her chair for a few days.  Doesn't look to comfortable to me, but hey, if she sleeps I'm okay with just about anywhere.

Carter even decided to take a nap in his chair!  Those 2 hours alone made the chairs worth it.  Carter doesn't really take naps anymore unless we're in the car driving somewhere so this was a welcome surprise.

After a little snow storm Michael and Carter made a baby snowman.  Carter wanted to take a picture with his camera too.