Baby girl's first Christmas Eve

Baby girl got to open up her first pair of Christmas Eve jammies tonight. She seems more interested in the wrapped packages, she actually gets a little perturbed when we open them. She doesn't want to rip the paper, she just wants to look at it. She did like the jammies though, she kept waving them around and shrieking. Both hers and the boy's jammies have monkeys on them, so they match but they are not "matchy." We opened jammies, then put our special ornaments on the tree, put out cookies for Santa, read "The Night Before Christmas" and the story of Jesus' birth from Luke, checked Norad for Santa's progress, and put the kids to bed. It was a GREAT evening.

Cookies for friends

For FHE we made cookies and decorated them for friends. We delivered all but one, and we had a lot of fun doing it. The boy took it very seriously. I had written "Love, the ....'s" on all of them, before the boy told me that he wanted to "put them on the doorstep and run away. Like elves." So he was in charge of delivering each plate. He got to take the first plate to his best little buddy (and future wife...according to them) and her family, including their new little baby who is one week old. We also took some to the missionaries, to our family's best buds, and to Nana. We have one more plate for another family but they weren't home tonight. The boy and I will finish frosting and delivering the rest tomorrow. What a fun way to spend the evening!

RS dinner

I am the 2nd counselor in the RS (formerly known as the "enrichment counselor,") and we don't have an enrichment leader, so all of the planning and carryout for the RS Christmas dinner fell to me. I had a couple of really wonderful helpers, and it went perfectly. Dinner was good, and filling (especially with a limited budget!) decorating dessert gingerbread house cakes was fun and original, the program was beautiful and spiritual, and my mother in law came for the party, which was a pleasant surprise. Over all, I was very pleased with the way it went.

Collection in the making...

I have decided that I want to start collecting Nativities. I like all of them, wood, paper, toys, whatever. I think this one is way cute. I love it, and I love that it is different than most. It is amazing to me that something so cute, and fun, and special can come from plain old paper.

Gingerbread houses...take 2

Ok, so last year, our gingerbread houses were a DISASTER. They fell apart, the frosting didn't spread, Mommy had a melt down (Well, I was pregnant so I blame hormones!) So this year we decided we were only going to buy pre-assembled houses. I didn't realize when I bought the mini village that they were not put together. We tried in a big hurry to put them together on Monday for FHE, but when it didn't work (and Mommy had a mini meltdown,) we put them in the closet. Today, Mommy took her time and got them assembled, and voila! A gingerbread village! (But next year....we will double check that they are pre-assembled cuz I'm not doing that again!)

O Christmas tree

The kids were fascinated by decorating the tree. The boy took it very seriously, hanging all the blue bulbs on one side, and all the pink on another, only about 2 feet off the ground all the way around. Daddy "helped" him get them distributed more evenly. Baby girl LOVED the shiny and sparkly bulbs. She just stared at them the entire time. It was so fun to watch them together sharing this tradition.

Halloween Sunday

Today, it was fun to dress up in our matching Halloween church clothes (I know, that is a funny concept, Halloween church clothes!) I made the boys ties, baby girl's dress and headband, and my flower pins out of the same material, and we wore orange and black. We got quite a few compliments, and got to have a little family fun for church. Heard some great speakers at Stake Conference, then got to have some friends and the Elders over for dinner. Dinner was really good and pumpkin themed. Black bean pumpkin chili, and rice and beef pilaf cooked inside a whole pumpkin. The pumpkin is a Halloween tradition for our friends that they shared with us, which we are going to adopt. It was really tasty, and really fun. We only got one little trick or treater though, which was a bummer for the boy; he really wanted to pass out candy.