Winter Break and Christmas Eve Eve

Henry and his friend Beck went sledding down a "hill" over by our church building. I picked him up for dinner and just had to relish in the moment. There's nothing like being a kid at Christmastime.

The kids got out of school on Friday the 17th. This still seems soooo early to me. I remember most years going until the 23rd. I didn't get to help at any Christmas parties. James made more Christmas crafts. Henry's class did a gift exchange and watched Home Alone. Erica's class had a party but I didn't sign up to help. Sarah watched Christmas movies in 3 of her 7 classes. They all wore their pajamas. The all came home hopped up on sugar.

After dinner we checked the traffic cameras and went to the Festival of Lights. Last year the lines were super long but I think more people came than usual because of parties and events cancelled from covid.

They don't have to stay buckled but they do have to stay in their seats. It took Erica 16 seconds to fall and get hurt because she stood up.

Christmas cowboys.

This tree looked new.

Christmas whales.

Christmas dinosaurs.

Christmas frogs.

Saturday Henry went to the Sheen's house to play with Wayne (the moved last summer too--to Orem) and Madison and Luke came to our house. They had so much fun playing together. If it didn't take an hour to swap kids and another hour to swap them back, we would see them more.

Sunday after church we drove to Hurricane for a little pre-Christmas vacation/break. What would we do for a full week before Christmas? 

Go to the children's museum, of course. We hadn't been for 4 years--James didn't remember it.

We ate our packed lunch in the parking lot then drove up to Pioneer Park. Justin wanted to take the kids through the crack. I can't handle that sort of thing without panicking so I hiked up and around to wait for them to come out.

Erica was pretty nervous since this is the area of her big fall last year but if we could kind of distract her or just let her do what she was comfortable with, she did great.

The boys on the other hand were too brave for my liking.

From there we drove around to look at the progress on the St. George temple and the Red Cliffs temple. The kids shopped for presents for eachother at DI and then we ate dinner at Texas Roadhouse.

After that it was time to go to Tuacahn for the Nativity play.

Yes Henry was warned that it would be cold and wore shorts anyway.

We didn't want to wait in the line to see Santa so we just watched for a few minutes.

I was smart and brought blankets this year. I'm pretty sure the hot chocolate was their favorite part of the whole thing.

We sat behind a family with 6 kids. By the end of the 20 minute show, 5 of the 6 kids were sitting on the parents' laps. It was pretty distracting but funny.

The next morning after breakfast we went on a hike in Hurricane. I don't remember what it was called. It was to take us passed 3 waterfalls but they were all dry.

The route past the first waterfall was super steep with lots of loose rocks so we just explored the first area and then hiked back. It might be more worth it in the summer when there's water flowing.

We ended up coming home later that afternoon. We stopped at Hermies in Cedar City (Henry's favorite part of the whole trip).

Thursday was our annual Christmas Eve Eve night. While Justin made dinner I gathered up the kids from friends houses and my mom's and we set up for our festive night.

This night we light all 4 candles. (1 the first Thursday, 2 the second Thursday, etc)

Justin made shortribs and risotto. I made pretzel jello and Henry made the green beans.

After dinner is cleaned up the kids get to open their Christmas pajamas and new Christmas book.

Brothers. Their pajamas came in 2-piece sets and they opted to NOT match.

Sisters.

Then we watched A Charlie Brown Christmas and off to bed!