The Evenings Are Just Packed

Henry did the FHE lesson last week. He came home from church super excited about a scripture they read and an activity they did in primary so we tried to recreate that.

He had us read D&C 11:28, had Justin read a story of Christ's birth out of the December's Friend, then we played Christmas Pictionary where we drew Christmas stuff and talked about how they remind us of Jesus. I just loved seeing him so focused and organized and sincere about what he was doing. I hope he volunteers to do the lesson more often. His primary teacher thinks it's so sweet that he talks about his "baby" in class. "My baby gets so messy when he eats." He loves James.

He practiced filling out a tithing envelope.

James walks! He's been taking a step here and there for about a week. Usually it was between furniture while he was cruising around. It was so quick we'd say "Did he just take step there?" But on Sunday he took 5 steps in a row right in the middle of the room! And then yesterday he took like 9 in a row and then would take 2 or 3 steps in a row. He thinks he's pretty awesome. His first word was "no" (so fitting) and his second word was "hi".

Erica cracks me up every day. She asks the most thoughtful question. "I know you don't know where heaven is but what do we do there?" I love hanging out with her.

She loves to do dishes.

She has a really hard time only eating one candy a day on her chocolate countdown. I think she only has 8 left. I sat down with her and explained again how the countdown worked, that she can eat them all if she wants but she might be sad when they are all gone before Christmas. The next day she ate a bunch out of Henry and Sarah's countdowns. I'm not sure if she didn't understand what I was telling her or she understood too well.

She's showing me how much she's grown. "I used to be under this shelf, now I'm over this shelf."

She started a one-girl-band.

James crawled into the kitchen with a soaking wet head. Erica had squirted his hair and made a mo-hawk.
Erica made a portrait of Nana out of Cheerios. The little pile to the side "are for eating".

For the last few years our stake has put on a crèche. Stake members donate nativities to be put on display for a couple of days so that people in the community can come see them all. It's a fun Christmas activity and I always find several that I love and won't to own.

 Erica liked this one.

 I love that some were priceless heirlooms or from far away countries and others were homemade.

 This Peanuts one was one of my favorites.

 I could look at this one forever.

 Probably weren't supposed to but you can blow these windmill tops and the figurines below turned like a carousel.

 Volunteers played music and sang.

 So many tiny and unique ones too. I love that the whole world and so many cultures celebrate Christ's birth.

Thursday night we drove through the festival of lights. I let Justin wrangle James this time while I drove. He spent the second half of the loop hanging half way out the window.

I think Sarah enjoyed her candy cane more than anything. When she was little all she asked for Christmas was a candy cane.

It was a great night if you don't count the dead battery in the Shopko parking lot. Luckily Corey and Nadine were nearby that they could rescue us.

This is what Erica's braided ponytail looked like the next morning.

Saturday Sarah and I took the train to SLC for the MoTab Christmas concert. The train was packed! We were lucky to get two seats together even though they were rear facing. It was Sarah's first time on the train and she loved it as much as I thought she would.

 We were meeting my family at the skating rink at the Gallivan center but I made Sarah stop and look at Brian Mullahy anchor the 5 o'clock news. It's the news nerd in me. We weren't obnoxious jumping around the background but we were there!

We got there quite a bit later than everyone else so we didn't have time to ice skate. Sarah was so disappointed so I promised to take her another time. She still wanted to go out onto the ice for just a second. Poor thing.

 Then the group of us (Rachel's family, Christena and Bella, Jaana and Kyra) walked to City Creek and ate dinner at the super noisy loud packed food court. Then we parted ways. Jaana and Kyra came with us to the concert and we meandered a little through temple square on our way there.

 Hood+rain makes for some crazy hair.

 I love these two nieces of mine so much! They are so sweet and fun and funny. I'm glad Sarah has them to look up to.

 And I think Sarah was having a blast feeling all grown up without the younger kids along.

We had pretty much the worst seats in the entire conference center but it was still amazing to be there.

 We discussed just what would happen if there were an earthquake while we were inside. This building always amazes me.

 The concert was pretty much amazing. I've seen several on TV and one other in person and this was one of my favorites. I was worried that Sutton Foster would be a little too "broadway" for my taste but she dialed it way down and was just fun to watch and has a great voice. I liked or loved every song. And it was crazy to see Hugh Bonneville in person, if you can count this as in person.

We walked past the Macy's window displays on our way to the parking garage. What a fun tradition! I'm so glad they do this again.

One more week until Christmas! I still need to wrap presents, make caramel and sugar cookies, deliver all the neighbor gifts I've been working on, go to a couple more stores, replace our kitchen sink, watch It's a Wonderful Life and Christmas Vacation and Home Alone, and take some super cute pictures of my kids by the tree (which mysteriously fell over last night). I picked it up before the kids woke up because no child should be witness to this:

Funny sad.

We Cut Down a Tree!

Our kids got spoiled this fall. I don't think we'll ever be able to keep the trampoline up until December 1 again.  It was super cold that morning but they wanted a good-bye jump.

I got together with a couple of my best friends from high school. From about 7th grade to 11th grade, the three of us were pretty inseparable. We don't always get together but when we do, there's food involved.

Since our fake tree is kind of small and all the pre-lit lights no longer work, I had a great idea that we should go cut one down in the forest, just like in the olden days. Justin stood in line for more than an hour outside a hardware store in Nephi to get a $10 permit a couple of weeks ago. Then on Friday we got the kids out of school early and went Christmas tree hunting.

 Oh these three.

 James liked sitting in front. He loved not being buckled.

 We found snow!

 What they didn't stomp on they ate.

 After driving around and hiking for a couple of hours ("What's wrong with this tree?" the kids began to whine) we finally found a good one. I think the temperature dropping and the sun setting motivated us to be decisive. Henry and Justin cut it down while Erica posed at the bottom of the hill.

 Aw yeah!

James was being super cute while we were tying it to the roof.

 I mean, come on. Even blurry he's the cutest baby in a beanie with a cold nose.

 Then on the way home we saw so many deer! Erica loves to look at deer.

 And there was a lot of deer. It was like a deer safari.

The next day after an hour of me being OCD about stringing the lights, the kids decorated the tree.

My favorite part was listening to the kids unload the decorations box and say things like "Oh I remember this!" I forget that these "new things" to me are the things that are special to them and they'll feel nostalgic about someday.

Lots of fights have broken out over this nativity set. Each kid likes it a different way and get mad when someone else rearranges. I'm hoping they'll stop caring soon.

It's nice that Sarah and Henry are getting taller and understand that the ornaments don't all have to be on the same branch near the bottom.

Ack he's growing up. And he has a chocolate face.

I love love love how magical this time of year is for Erica. She's at the perfect age for Christmas magic.

James was napping during the decorating so I was curious to see his reaction. He grabbed a ball and put it in his mouth just like I thought he would but he didn't grab branches and pull it down on himself like I thought he would.

He's mostly left it alone or bats and grabs at ornaments. I think the tree is safe!

He had the honors of putting on the star.

He wanted it right back.

I put up the Winnie the Pooh poster after a year break and Erica didn't remember it which makes sense since she was one last time it was up. I also added an ornament to Justin's elk to be festive and make him look less scary to the kids.

What do you think? Do you think the kids will be less scared of it as they walk by and look up?