Christmas Festivities

We got back from our trip and enjoyed adding Christmas activities to our already busy schedule.  We had our annual daycare party.  Elliott is the only one attending this daycare this year, but it is our family's 9th year there!  It was on the same night as my work party (which seems to happen every year) so Jim took the boys and I met up with them when my party was over.  

We also went and got our Christmas tree.  Jim had planned ahead for crossing the creek and built a bridge that we hauled on top of our car.  Earlier in the year (October) he was able to use the bridge as scaffolding to work on our siding.  The creek was hardly frozen at all this year and the bridge really helped us get to the trees.  After we crossed we pulled it over to the forest side so that no one could take it or use it.

Our fancy homemade bridge

The boys enjoyed tromping through the forest and it is always interesting trying to find a decent tree.  We found one that would work and Jim hauled it back to the car.  We got it set up at home and aside from a few sparse areas it looked pretty good with lights and ornaments.

We got all our Christmas decorations up and really enjoyed them for the month.  Jim got lights on the outside of the house, we'll have to get a picture when it's dark.  I went to another Christmas party that is an annual tradition for just the sonographers and nurses from work.  We like to do a smaller party with a gift exchange.  Jim had a couple work parties at work (he had to miss one to stay home with a sick Elliott).  I skipped a couple women's events through church because I felt too busy and wanted to enjoy time with our family.  Ezra continued with ice skating lessons and Emmett worked really hard on his piano piece to get it ready for his Christmas recital.  I took Ezra to an ice skating show put on by our local figure skating club.

We read through Jotham's Journey a little each day for Advent.  We celebrated St. Nicholas Day with shoes by the fire and got some games, chocolate coins and real coins.  We also went to Jim's work Family Christmas Party.  They have lunch, Santa, gifts, and crafts.  This year's crafts were making cards for Navy Sailors.  

My lefty who loves to write

We found some time to craft.  I made the Joy sign based on something I had seen.  We made a gingerbread village and did the little plastic bead crafts that you iron.  We also spent time at our neighborhood sledding hill.  Jim and I went out for our anniversary and had a really nice dinner out while the boys had a great time with their babysitter, Brooke.   While the boys were out for Christmas break Jim took days off to stay home with them on the days I worked.  He took them sledding at a park and did some projects with them.  We watched lots of movies from the library as a family.  Our local ski hill finally opened and Jim took Ezra one day and then both boys together a couple times.  We are praying for more snow! 

 We didn't get many pictures of Christmas.  Jim mostly took videos this year.  On Christmas Eve we went to church for a morning service.  Afterwards we ate lunch and did some crafts.  Then the boys watched a movie while I took a friend and her family to the airport.  Then we went to church for an evening "candlelight" service and I stayed for the second evening service to help in the nursery.  The boys lost their privilege of opening a gift that night due to some behavior issues, but we enjoyed a late dinner of pizza, cheesy bread and root beer floats.

Christmas morning I made cinnamon rolls and the boys slept in.  Emmett came downstairs first, a little after 8am.  I finished working on breakfast and the other two got up and we did stockings.  We took turns and enjoyed watching everyone find little treasures, one of my very favorite parts of Christmas.  We enjoyed sausage and cinnamon rolls and then all the boys went out to shovel the 3-4 inches of snow that fell overnight.  One of our neighbors had surgery last week so the helped with their driveway and helped another neighbor too.  I got the house tidied up while they worked.  Then we started in on presents.  We really took our time enjoying each gift.  Jim had put together a pretty epic "treasure hunt"(we just watched National Treasure) for a special Christmas Surprise.  A friend of a friend was wanting to give away their Foosball table and they thought of us.  Emmett has been begging to look for a Foosball table and so Jim went a disassembled it a couple weeks ago with a friend and it has been hiding in our basement ever since.  The boys were completely surprised by it and had clues that involved looking up Latin and other "codes" on google as well as un-scrambling other codes. 

We snacked on fruit, cheese, crackers, chips and dip throughout the day and then had a nice dinner of ham, potatoes and green beans with fancy "china" and champagne flutes.

Our centerpiece, roses from our anniversary

Near the end of the day there were still a couple gifts left under the tree that were nearly forgotten.  I thought about hiding them for birthdays, but the boys hadn't actually forgotten.  The main one left was a slot car track for all of them.  We have really enjoyed playing with that and the Foosball table as a family.