december daily #25

christmas day!
it is finally here! we've been counting down, keeping busy and enjoying the season!
todd, rachel and i got to bed kind of late...later than i was thinking i would. but we still beat santa.
xander came into my room and woke me at 2:30am and said that he heard santa land on the roof and open the bottle of coke we left for him.
i convinced him that he could wait til the morning to go downstairs and off he went to bed.
cassidy woke up at 3:00 and went to todd, told him that her covers had come off her bed.
so it was a restless evening.

we had to wake the kids at 7:30 because we had church at 9:00. we woke, we met at the top of the stairs, and we filed into the living room....

here is a list of the gifts received....

the day was good, lazy and full of food and music. summer sausage, cheese, monkey bread and fruit pizza for breakfast YUM!

xander was worried for a bit, as there were no presents from santa under the tree for him. instead he found an envelope in the tree that had both his name and cassidy's name on it.
inside was a word puzzle. "cross out all the letters in the word SNOW. you'll find your next clue at the place named with the letters that are left." so the first clue sent them to the fridge, then to the garage, the stairs, the laundry room and finally santa's bag. inside the bag cassidy found a present and xander found 3 presents bundled together. i think they also found a little bit of relief!
cassidy's present - an MP3 player. xander's presents - a Nintendo 3DS and 2 games.

we went over to g&p's house for dinner. the food was restaurant amazing! seriously couldn't have been any better if we had gone to a restaurant. and then we played a rousing game of christmas bingo, thanks to courtney. so funny. followed by yummy gut busting deserts and a few attempts at “just dance kids”…gummy bear was the best one!

 coming down the stairs

 always amazes me!

after church, before changing back into PJ's

 found in Santa's bag

the mess left behind

we are Longhorns

 christmas bingo

december daily #20

a funny tonight... rachel asked cassidy if she knew how to spell christmas. cassidy responded with "c-a-s-s-i-d-y". ha ha ha!

it was a great night. the kids danced at lake lanier's magical nights of lights. i couldn't stop smiling watching them. they were amazing.
it is so impressive to watch them. they may not be the best dancers or bound for broadway, but they love to dance and it shows!

december daily #16

tonight was the ward Christmas party. Sad…I didn’t take any pictures. But one someone was set up with a camera for Santa pictures, and got one of Cassidy. I don’t think Xaner even knew he was there, he just spent the whole night running around. Yes, that was my crazy, loud, hooligan running through the halls…sorry!

december daily #13

A new friend in my ward is currently living at lake lanier. She had a pass to get into the Magical Nights of Lights and gave it to us to use. We went and saw the lights tonight. It is an impressive light show, and more impressive is the work that must go into setting it all up, but not for the price. So we were very grateful that we could see it for free. After driving through the lights we went over to their house. The kids made gingerbread houses. They had a great time getting all sugared up, but they were entertained enough that “the adults” were able to talk and enjoy ourselves too.

december daily #10

Tonight was the Christmas party at All Stars. We had a good time. Although slightly crowded the kids enjoyed dancing and doing tricks. And much to my surprise Todd agreed to sing karaoke…he chose “White Christmas”. Cassidy sang with him. Totally blew me away, I would have thought he would have “declined” the offer, profusely. But he gave in pretty quickly when Mr. Alex asked. Too bad he doesn’t sing more often.

december daily #9

We let the kids sleep under the Christmas tree tonight.

december daily #6

We had a few presents ready… we had books printed with pictures from our trip to Disney and plan on giving them to Courtney, Shaun, & Chad. So we started wrapping those tonight.

december daily #5

for FHE tonight we talked about the symbols of Christmas. I found a great introduction to Jesus and Christmas, …at latter-dayhomeschooling.com

"Pretty soon we might have a special guest visit our house. You never know! I'm going to give some clues that describe this person and you guess who it is." The clues included:

• he sees you when you're sleeping. He knows when you're awake. He knows if you've been bad or good.
• he has a beard and a kind face
• he spent his life giving to others
• he's often pictured in red and/or white clothes
• he loves little children
• he gives the very best gifts
• you can never see him, but you can feel him
• he gives us a wonderful, special warm feeling
• he can get into our homes even if the doors are locked
• he has special, wonderful powers
• we want to give gifts back to him, but he doesn't need anything we could buy; he just wants us to give to other people. (My kids have been talking about giving a present to Santa.)
• I ended with, "He encourages us to be good so we will be ready when he comes."

do you know what they guessed? do you know how surprised they were when I told them I was talking about Jesus and showed them this picture?

we talked about how candy canes, wreaths and trees had other meanings, not just decorations for the holiday. it was eye opening for them.

we followed up the lesson with snowman ice cream sundaes.

december daily #12

tonight we watched a dvd about Christ's birth put out by The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. After having children of my own I am more in awe of Mary and the thought of holding a little baby, knowing what she knew, and yet just wanting to hold her baby as a mother. i don’t know that I said that right, but it makes me stop and think. as I talked about it with the kids tonight of course i teared up. they got worried because i was having a hard time keeping my voice even.
when were done we attempted a gingerbread nativity. xander and i had a fun time trying to figure out how to make the people. his star was the crowning glory though!

december daily #4

We snuggled up (or tried to with a fidgety 5 year old and an over energetic 8 year old) and read some Christmas books. We have a small shelf full, and never manage to read even half. But we thought we’d give it a good start this year.

december daily #3

i knew today was going to be a busy day, but didn't realize how much the kids would enjoy it!
today was the buford city holiday celebration.
the kids were scheduled to dance at 11:30, so we left the house at 9:45 to give ourselves plenty of time to get there.
we got a great parking spot and walked to the stage. because we were so early we had a bit of a wait, but it was so much better than rushing and getting there late. (will i ever learn?)
the kids performed and were fabulous. were they perfect? no, but they had a great time doing it. Love that dance is teaching them so much confidence.
they decided to perform in the parade down main street too. so we bought a pizza, ate at the car, then walked the whole length of main street to the gathering point for the parade. they complained a little, but showed a little more anxiety and excitement about being in a parade.
we left them at the float/trailer. cassidy sitting inside, xander walking with the older kids. and we left cassidy with a walkie-talkie.
then we headed back to the car. all the while checking in with the kids.
we waited and watched as the small town showed it’s spirit. and then before us were some kids doing flips and cartwheels. it wasn’t until they were even with us that we both realized it was xander doing the flips down main street! he and two other boys had gone in front of the truck pulling the trailer, and we almost missed him. we waved to cassidy as she went by and then set off for the end of the parade route to meet them. when we got there they were all smiles. xander was thrilled to have been doing tricks the whole way. crazy kid….i’m going to need to get him some tumbling classes.
walking through the shops and tents on the way back to the car made me realize i love living in small towns. it is such a thrill to be involved, even in little ways.
later that night we did a little shopping, starting to put together what the kids would want to get for each other and for their aunts and uncles. it is hard to keep them from asking for things for themselves, but again, their excitement grew as they thought about the gift ideas and the thought of putting them under the tree.

december daily #2

the end of the week! friday is here...and we don't have any plans.
we'll hang out at home and gear up for a busy day tomorrow.
i am getting our advent/countdown done. crossing my fingers that i'll have it finished this weekend.
i've been trying to plan an activity - large, small, religious, secular - all family oriented for each night leading up to christmas.
don't want to stress us out, but keep the focus where it should be!

december daily #1

First day of December. Wow! Time flies. Wasn't it just summer?
Well, here is my attempt at keeping up with December, and hopefully the blog.
The first day of December was a Thursday. Our house was already decorated - tree up, stockings hung, snow globes out, garland and red presents up the staircase.
Todd likes to get that done early, right after Thanksgiving!
We had signed up to have the missionaries over for dinner on the 1st. They were great company, and put up with the silly and slightly disrespectful antics of my children.
We listened to Christmas Carols while eating baked potatoes and chili, followed by sugar cookies. We talked about our favorite songs and traditions. The elders encouraged us to let our friend's know we are mormon, pass out mormon.org cards and to find a family or friend to invite to the Ward Christmas party.
It was a great night, a a wonderful way to start off the Christmas season.