Christmas Round-Up

At this point, I'm not even sure where to start. December is always a busy month, but I thought I'd have time to better keep up with all of our activities than I ended up with. I usually have most of my Christmas shopping done by the first week of December when the kids go off track so that I can spend the month playing with the kids. This year was no different, but I guess we just spent so much time playing that I didn't do much else. I hate leaving the blogging part til the end, because this is the only journal I keep. Terrible, I know. But none the less, here's the summary of this month's craziness.

We went to see Santa at the mall. There is only one mall left in the valley that will still let you take your own pictures with Santa. I refuse to pay their outrageous prices for the dorky photos, so we ventured out on a snowy day to see Santa. I love being able to take the kids during the day when everyone else is at school. We can walk right up and see Santa and there's never anyone behind us pushing us to hurry. The kids whispered a few top choices in his ear and he promised to see what he could do.

We took Spencer and Seth to the John Schmidt concert. Both the boys are taking piano lessons now, and Spencer is getting quite good. I've recently found him laying upside-down on the piano bench playing "Jingle Bells" so taking him to see John Schmidt seemed to be he natural thing to do. For those of you that don't know who he is, he is a great composer/pianist that gets a kick out of playing the piano with various body parts, but more notably, upside-down. Spencer loved the concert and seeing how much fun someone could have with music. Seth liked it, but he's a little harder to read. I knew he enjoyed it when I heard him say, "Hey, that's John! I'm his biggest fan!" the next day when a commercial came on for the concert.

It was a fun night out with just the two of them. We took them to dinner and broke the news to Seth about Santa. He quickly exclaimed, "I knew it!" A thousand thanks to Dalin for babysitting the 3 little kids at the last minute. We couldn't have gone without your help.

Tiara's class had their monthly field trip to Gardner Village. We all went along to see all the elves. It was decorated so cute with elves everywhere. Tiara had lots of fun with her friends. Davis & McCall fit right in and added to the chaos. It was a cold, but fun day.

She also had her Christmas program at school. She was so excited to perform for all of us. She's been practicing her part and all of her songs for weeks. She is just the cutest little Santa girl!
We also made our traditional candy houses. First we made one at home. This is part of the off-track that I love. I assemble the house and the kids go crazy. They get to be totally in charge of how it looks and they love it. It may not end up as perfect as it could, but they LOVE plastering as much candy as they can where ever they can. It's so fun to watch them.

Every year we have a candy house party at Dave's parents' house. The kids build the biggest graham cracker house they can and then fill it with their favorite candy. They still decorate the outside, but the inside is the important part. Seth's house was a little different this year. He placed a candy on each outside wall and that was it. No candy inside and nothing around the house. Dave, of course, couldn't have a kid of his with an empty house, so he filled it with candy when Seth wasn't looking.

And, of course, no Christmas would be complete with out the family Christmas pageant. Tiara was so excited to play Mary this year. She has some older cousins that also love to be Mary, but they graciously gave up the part so she could have a turn. Thanks girls, she loved it! Spencer was her donkey, Davis & Jackson played shepherds and McCall was a cow. Seth was...downstairs playing the Wii...BIG surprise!