The 24 Days of Christmas

On the first day of Christmas we decorated our trees.  The kids did an awesome job with their trees... I was having stress about mine.  I wanted ornaments to match my new living room and all the Christmassy stuff clashed...  I kind of had a melt down.... I ended up doing silver and white which matched absolutely nothing... I just gave up!

The 2nd day of Christmas...We made the journey dinner our actual dinner, so we tried to have a lot of food.  The kids loved eating jerky and nuts... they had never had pistachios, and we watched mormon messages on the ipad.  

The 3rd day of Christ mas...The kids wrote their letters to Santa.  My favorite part was that Terek said he was naughty and nice... so true.  If you look closely, you will notice he put that he "needed" pull-ups... I will have to post the video of him opening them on Christmas morning.

The 4th Day of Christmas, we went to town square.  The trees had awesome lights in them and the kids got to jump around on the rocks in the fountain.  They also got to see Santa and ride the carousel.

On the 5th day of Christmas, we went shopping for new ornaments for the boys.  Note for next year... TARGET:)  We went to both Walmart and Kmart and this was the best we could come up with.

The 6th day of Christmas, we mailed our Christmas cards.  The kids helped put on the stamps and stuff and seal the envelopes.

 On the 7th day of Christmas, Brenner had the first of one of his many choir concerts.  He sang at Lin's grocery store.

 On the 8th day of Christmas we had our ward Christmas breakfast.   Food with friends and Santa:)

 On the 9th day of Christmas I started a new tradition that I need to continue.  We had a grinch dinner.  We read the book, ate "grinch" food and watched the movie.... the short cartoon.  Next year I think I will add some fun grinch cupcakes or something cute and fun like that.

On the 10th day of Christmas, we went to Staheli family farm for the live nativity.  IT.WAS.COLD!  We bundled up in  a blanket, but still froze.  I would highly recommend it.  The music was beautiful and you could really feel the spirit of the true meaning of Christmas.

On the 11th day of Christmas, we made gift for the kids to give all of their classmates.  (These are not the ones we made... I forgot to take pictures).  We made reindeer noses... the brown ones were whoppers and the red ones were cherry sours.  We made 70 of these little things!

On the 12th day of Christmas, we had another choir performance at a care center in St. George.

On the 13th day of Christmas, we went to Target so the boys could buy presents for each other.... they get to open these presents on Christmas Eve.

On the 14th day of Christmas, we drove around to look at lights... there were some awesome ones out there!

On the 15th day of Christmas, we headed to Kanarraville to go sledding!  The boys had a blast!

On the 16th day of Christmas, we acted out the nativity.  It was fun to have a real baby (although baby Jennika was a little girly for baby Jesus)

On the 17th day of Christmas... I had planned to go to Tuacahn... my little party poopers just wanted to watch a Christmas Story... so I went shopping and they watched a movie with their dad.

On the 18th day of Christmas, we made a little sand ornament Christmas craft.

On the 19th day of Christmas, we had a choir performance at the school.

On the 10th day of Christmas, we had a birthday party for Ryan and our friend (Matt Hammons).  We had an adult party... and the kids partied at our house with a few babysitters.  We had a hot cocoa bar and played some awesome minute-to-win-it games.

On the 21st day of Christmas, we had our CHRISTMAS dinner with the Blake family.  We had some awesome yummy food:)

On the 22nd day of Christmas, we went to a light show put on by Kuhn heat and air.  They had free hot chocolate, hot dogs and Santa!

On the 23rd day of Christas... well, we went to church.  Then it was West's birthday, so we went to my parent's house (where Lucas and Shellie were staying) for dinner, cake and presents... I didn't take any pictures.

 On the 24th day of Christmas, we went to dinner with the Blake family at Buca di Beppo.

We hope everyone had a very Merry Christmas!!!

On the 24th day of Christmas...

We went hiking at Zion National Park. I think we need to make it a tradition to go hiking on Christmas Eve as long as we live in St. George. The weather is always nice and it's fun to get outside. We went with Ryan's parents, his brother Dane and his wife Sara, and his brother Shane and his girl friend Denise. It was good fun!!!
My mom made the boys jammies again this year. I appliqued the cute frogs on their shirts.
And the big news is that we bought my mom a kitty for Christmas. We gave it to her early because the animal shelter would be closed. Joren loves the kitty and wants to spend any waking (or sleeping) hour with her. Her name is Myah and she's about 3 months old.

On the 23rd Day of Christmas...

.... our activity was to see a Christmas movie. We delivered our neighbor gifts, then came home and watched "The Grinch"

On the 21st Day of Christmas...

... we went out for frozen yogurt!

We love Krave!!!

On the 20th day of Christmas...

... we put together the kids' friends' gifts. I like to have the kids give a little gift to all of their classmates.

On the 19th Day of Christmas...

.... we went to reading time at the library. Terek was the only one of my kids who would even go see Santa, but he was a little shy. Joren and Brenner said they didn't want to see Santa because they had already had seen him a thousand times:)

On the 18th day of Christmas...

We had too much fun playing with cousins to do our activity....
(sorry about the crazy pic... I had chosen poorly on my retro camera) The big boys had fun building a fort out of blankets with their girl cousins.

Terek loved playing the fighting game.

After playing with cousins at grandma Rose's, we came home to more cousins at our house. And more perler beading!!!

On the 17th day of Christmas...

The boys made the engine to their train....

They are getting to be such great little builders.

On the 16th day of Christmas...

... we picked names for our Christmas Pixies... All weekend we do acts of service for the member of the family that we drew out of the bowl!!!

On the 15th Day of Christmas...

... we drove around to look at Christmas lights... this house is in Bloomington Hills and it's awesome!!! We also found some fun houses that have lights that flash to the music.

On the 14th day of Christmas...

... we had our "journey dinner." This is something my mom has had us do as long as I can remember. We would sit on a blanket on the floor and eat what Mary and Joseph would have eaten on their "journey" to Bethlehem. Usually we eat dried fruit, nuts, jerky, etc. We also thought we'd have some apple juice. The kids were very excited. Brenner said it was the best bedtime snack ever.

On the 13th Day of Christmas...

We went to Grandpa and Grandma Scholes' house for dinner and to make our Christmas crafts...

Joren made a penguin.
Terek made a snowman and Brenner made a polar bear.

On the 12th day of Christmas....

... we went to "Swim with Santa" at Sand Hollow Aquatic Center....

The 16 year old life guard dressed as Santa was not quite my idea of Santa.
However, it's been awhile since the kids have been swimming so it was quite fun for them.

I can't believe our Christmas countdown is half way over... the time is flying!!!

On the 11th Day of Christmas...

We had our C-H-R-I-S-T-M-A-S dinner. Because we didn't have a lot of people (my mom and dad, Logan and Sydney, Ryan, the kids and I), we didn't want to go too overboard with a lot of food. Sydney made delicious homemade rolls. Logan made the main dish which was the pasta with his alfredo sauce... most of the menu items were part of the pasta.

It has always been a tradition that we eat our dinner on my mom's green plates. The kids got excited that we were using grandma's fancy dishes and having a fancy meal. Brenner made a menu for us.
The kids helped me make name cards.

The food was delicious even though some people didn't like some of the things that were the letters in Christmas (mushrooms).

After dinner, we played a game of "vintage" clue. I'm not sure if I should be offended by Sydney calling it vintage since my name and address was inside the lid of the box... does that mean I'm vintage????? I'm just excited that I won!!!

On the 10th day of Christmas...

We made the middle car of our train at Lowes.

On the 9th day if Christmas...

We went to Christmas in the canyon at Tuacahn. We saw the live nativity and went on the horse ride. It was nice to be outside in the cold by a warm fire.

On the 8th day of Christmas...

We shopped for our siblings...

(no pics of the shopping experience... it was too traumatic)

On the 7th Day of Christmas...

We mailed letters to Santa....

Joren said, "Get me whatever you want."
Brenner had a huge list... He wants spy net stuff, light strike stuff, ear muffs, toe socks, sun glasses, etc.
Terek wants a batman bike and a mean looking hulk suit.