Merry Christmas!!!

We had a grand Christmas day on Saturday.  I'll let the pictures do the talking.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Ok I changed my mind I have to comment on Emma's kitchen.  I've seen a lot of homemade kitchens floating around the web & when our neighbor gave us a free entertainment center I decided I could make a kitchen.  So Jeremy sanded it, Emma chose the paint color, Poppie drilled the hole for the sink appliances & painted it, my Mom painted the oven window & Jeremy glued the other stuff on so yeah I sure did a great job huh?  Haha, well I knew other people would do a great job.  But I do plan on sewing some curtains for the bottom shelves for my contribution.  How could I do that, you ask, without a sewing machine??

 

Well yup that was my great, exciting but terrifying gift!  Jeremy had to actually go & buy it for me cuz I just couldn't bring myself to do it even though I've been wanting this seriously for about 3 years.  I'm scared but so excited.  I have never sewn without my Mum there to interpret pattern lingo & you know finish the zipper or sleeve or whatever I was frustrated with.  And that was about 15-18 years ago so this will be new & tricky but I will be taking baby steps so it will be okay.  And when I don't have my Mum I have youtube & it can remind me how to thread my bobbin if I forget =)

 

More Adventing

Here's the rest of our adventing adventures.  Last Friday was our Christmas Eve so we did our program singing songs & acting out the Nativity scene.  This is the first year I felt like we had enough kids that could/would actually act it out to do the real thing.  We had Joseph & Mary & baby Jesus on the left, our wise men on the right, our shepherd with his sheep below & an angel (who was also the donkey with the sheep again).

 

This is our second year at hosting a caroling party.  This was one of my favorite traditions growing up so we're trying to make it a Shakespear tradition as well.  We had 14 adults & 22 kids in our house.  And those of you who have been in our little house know what a tight squeeze that was!  It was so much fun.

Ward Christmas party & the Primary kids singing

Making & delivering Christmas goodies

More Christmas lights & we made snowflakes one night too I think.

We got a babysitter for the younger 3 & took Hyrum & Hunter to see The Nutcracker.  Honestly they may have still been a little too young - we left probably 20 minutes before it ended.  BUT that said it was fun & I think they liked it at least for a while.  Someday we'll have to go to the performance up in Seattle.  That is the best I've seen.

Here are some non-adventing pictures

Matching hats made by Hava

Daddy Dallen love

H & H love 

okay they slept like this for 5 nights straight before Hyrum wanted his bed to himself again.  I thought it was so cute.

Silly boy...I miss my first baby!  He is just growing up so fast lately.  I miss him small but I am loving him as a big kid.  He is so fun.  I love his goofiness.  I love how sweet he can be & how excited he gets trying to explain the plot of a Goosebump or Magic Treehouse book or how his transformer is put together or about his Bakugans.  I love it when he gets a joke & starts giggling.  I love his pictures he draws.  I LOVE how he loves to read & how I can't seem to keep enough books around to keep up.  And I love how he genuinely enjoys the company of Dallen & wants to play with him every day.  Of course he has his "teenage" moments but so do I still =)

Adventing it again

We are enjoying our 2nd Christmas season with our Advent calendar & activities each day.  I think we're on our way to making this a tradition.  We are going to TX for the week of Christmas so of course we're going to do our own Christmas at home on the 15th of December so we started our adventing a little early.

We have done our shepherd's night which is one of my favorites.  The kids dress up as shepherds, we eat shepherd's pie, color sheep, act out the shepherd's part of the Nativity story & talk about the analogy between shepherd's/sheep/wolves & the Savior as a shepherd, we as sheep & avoiding the wolf or Satan.  The kids love it.

Greatest gingerbread house ever.  Aside from making the frosting & getting the foundation going it was 100% designed, decorated & created by Hyrum & Hunter.  I love seeing their creativity & independence.

Springfield South Stake does a creche or nativity weekend.  It's a big deal around here with lots of local & Branson performers, a live Nativity, many creche exhibits & free cookies & hot chocolate which is the kids' favorite part of course.

We made home made ornaments-Christmas mice.  I found this on my friend Ruth's blog & I loved how all 7 of them turned out.

 

We've had two movie nights watching Rudolph, Grinch & Frosty.

Game night.  Below is Hunter's pick: Bad Skunk.  It's a great game really ingenious for any tired Dad.  Jeremy lays on the floor with a giant pillow on top.  The kids crawl & jump all over him while he grabs an occasional ankle or tips them over onto the floor all while keeping his eyes closed & dozing a bit :)  Hyrum picked balloon volleyball.

We've done gifts of self & of course decorating the house.  The great thing about not having a lot of decorations is that it sure doesn't take long to get it all up!  Especially with the older boys helping.

And here are some non-advent pics I took of the kids this week that I liked.  Hyrum & Hunter built this "throne" for Dallen because they say he is the king.  That may be true.  He'd usually much rather be on the go than sitting in his throne.