december memories

December was much longer for us than usual. We're used to traveling for the holidays, and this year we stayed home. So we had the entire month to celebrate, play, keep it simple, and enjoy the season all together with out any huge deadline approaching. 

I will be honest and say that I did the decorating around the house when the kids were asleep on purpose. I knew they would play with everything way too much, and I'm not ready for that just yet. :) But when it came to decorating the tree we definitely made it a family affair - even if we had to super glue multiple ornaments back together (seriously, every day for five days straight I had to glue something together again). Decorating the tree, listening to certain Christmas music, and drinking hot chocolate with peppermint in it are all part of the tradition.

 Both kids loved it all. They played with all the ornaments and I loved telling them who gave them which ornament and when. Such fun memories! And they loved playing with all the lights in the house off except for the tree. They loved the glow the tree gave to the room, and I loved watching them experience the wonders of Christmas.

 A few years ago my mom gave L-man this recorded story of The Night Before Christmas. It was a major favorite this year, with both kids listening to it almost everyday. Lady-LE especially was obsessed, and I eventually had to put it high on the shelf because the book was being 'loved' a little too hard! 

 Our church put on a Christmas breakfast with a Nativity theme. So they asked all the kids to dress up as part of the nativity. We ate delicious food, and enjoyed a beautiful program that was very sweet, simple, and based all on the Savior. 

 Then Santa made an appearance and the kids swarmed him within seconds. I bribed Lady-LE to sit on his lap for a candy cane. L-man went willingly and dutifully told him he wanted police legos and excavators. And then he stayed on his lap and continued to chat away for a little while before I asked him to give another kid a chance. :)

 Our little angel and shepherd boy. They loved the costumes! :) 

We also got a new advent calendar this year that you can see in this picture and we loved it. The kids were such a fun age to understand things and feel the excitement of it all. We kept it really simple, and simple is good.

 And thankfully the weather continued to be awesome and we got to play outside in our new rock pit! 

 The kids love it, and so do our neighbor friends. It's definitely a hit!! 

 Thank you Pop Pop and uncle J!!

One of our activities in our advent calendar was a family date night to Coldstone for ice cream. Major success: L-man ate ice cream! Not even joking! It was a blue ice cream (cotton candy I think - gross!) and he ate it! This was big, people. Big.

{Of course Lady-LE eating ice cream is nothing new. This girl asks for it every day. She gets it from me} 

 I hosted Lady-LE's preschool the last week before Christmas, and we did lots of fun crafts. Reindeer antlers with handprints, santa's beard with cotton balls (with snowball fight afterwards), coloring nativity pictures, and yummy snowmen donuts and reindeer donuts. 

 Logan's preschool did a Christmas program for the parents too, and it was darling! 

He loves giving thumbs-up to me. It cracks me up. 

And yes, that's L-man's voice above everyone else's. Completely out of tune and off-key. But he sings his heart out and I love his passion for it. Singing is a learned skill, right? There's hope still! 

We even got lucky enough to be surprised with the 12 days of Christmas by someone. We never figured out who it was (I wouldn't let us at first, thinking that they would reveal themselves at the end, and they never did! I feel cheated and am sad I don't know who to thank!!). Each night they would leave us a piece to a nativity set the kids could help make. It was very sweet, and we all looked forward to the surprise every night. 

This month was such a special time for us!