Visits to Santa

Our ward had their Christmas Party Saturday night. Kyle and Kate stayed home sick. Kate was SO sad because she would miss seeing her friends and seeing Santa. Lindsey was sick first starting on Monday, then Preston on Tuesday then Kate on Friday night then Kyle Friday as well. Geesh! I'm the last one to get it and I hope I don't! But the Young Women were in charge of decorations and all the YW and leaders made a bunch of snowflakes. We hung them on the string across the gym. I loved how it looked. Our theme was Winter Wonderland.

Preston was excited to see Santa and told him he wanted "Molly" it's a train from Thomas and he like yelled it. It was funny.

Lindsey wasn't too happy to see Santa.

Then she stopped crying and just stared at him which was cute.

We decorated our tree yesterday and I love sitting in a dark room with just the Christmas lights on.

24 days 'til Christmas

In December we do a 25 day til Christmas countdown with activities. It's been more fun to do stuff as the kids are getting holder and enjoy the activities more. I needed an advent calendar though. I borrowed one from my Mom last year, but this year I wanted to make my own. So I looked on Pinterest and found this matchbox one that I thought was cute. Well, Jeni happened to have made one a couple years ago just like it so I picked her brain and got some good tips. After finding the right paper to match my red in my house I finally finished it in the nick of time. I printed off the activities on red paper, cut them into strips and put them in each little matchbox. We open one every morning to find out our activity. Today was make snowflakes. Here's some other ideas, not in specific order:

Decorate Christmas Tree

Watch First Presidency Message

Read Christmas Stories

Take Treats to Friends

Watch Frosty the Snowman

Decorate Gingerbread House

Make Christmas cupcakes and decorate them with friends

Color Christmas Pictures

Got out to dinner

Eat dinner by Candlelight

Sing Christmas Songs

Watch The Nativity

Read the Nativity Story out of the scriptures

Snowflake Lane in Bellevue

Red, Green & White Breakfast

Go to Jump Planet

Watch the Grinch

Make Ornament for Tree

Donate a Toy

And there are many more you could add or change. But it really is fun to do and Kate talks about the "fun thing" we are going to do each day.

I bought the little matchboxes at Walmart for $.98 for 10 of them. I bought the pan from Goodwill for $1.99 and then used goo gone to clean it up. Then I spray painted the pan black (in my kitchen because it was too cold outside, but then I wrecked our kitchen table with the black overspray and it got all over our kitchen floor- it was a MESS!!! Stupid of me! But it got painted. haha!)

Then you measure the matchboxes, cut strips of paper and I hot glued the paper onto the box because Jeni said she used glue stick/roller tape and it didn't stick. I embellished mine with ribbon and buttons and stuff. You cut little strips of magnets and put them on the back- I did 2 strips per box. My Mom made the circles with the numbers in Microsoft Word- made a circle with a text box inside for the number, she's tech savvy like that- and I used a 1" punch to punch them out. I printed out the top saying onto paper and used double sided tape to stick it down. I chose another pattern of paper to put on the rest of the pan because the magnets on the back were peeling up the paint from the pan. Add some ribbon and hang it on your wall! Oh yeah, the pan had a hole at the top so I could just hang it, but Jeni had Kevin drill 2 holes in her pan so she could put ribbon through it and hang it.

I am now ready for the Christmas countdown to begin!

Thankful

Thanksgiving came and went and I never blogged about it. I realized I hardly took any pictures over that weekend. We ventured over to my parent's house and spent Thanksgiving day with Melanie and her family and Dee Ann was even up because Melanie just had a baby boy on 11-11-11. Cool birthday! The food was delish and we had fun visiting with everyone. It was a good Thanksgiving- much to be thankful for.

My Mom, Marci and I went shopping on Black Friday. We don't do the crazy early shopping and we like it that way. By the time we get to the stores they are dead. Sure enough, Target and Walmart weren't busy, but the mall was crazy and JoAnn's had the LONGEST line to cut fabric. It was the worst and longest line we stood in all day. But with 3 people taking turns standing in line it wasn't too bad. The guys met us at night, the kids were at Jeni and Kevin's with a babysitter, and us adults went to Texas Roadhouse. They just opened one up in Tri-Cities. Their rolls are amazing and the food was really good. I hope they build more in Washington. A side note about shopping is Jeni went to Walmart on Thanksgiving night at 9pm (their sale started at 10pm) so while she was waiting she called us to see if we wanted anything. We were looking in the ad and then calling her multiple times with requests. She got us everything we wanted and was home by 10:15 thanks to a nice self-checkout lady who helped her check out super fast. Jeni said there were mass amounts of people and she would have been there for several hours waiting to checkout if she didn't luck out with the self checkout line.

Lindsey riding in comfort on our way to Tri-Cities on Thanksgiving morning. She sat like that for quite a while. It was funny.

Meeting Owen Henry for the first time. He looks like his daddy and brother Dane. He has lots of dark hair and was a very good baby because he slept through the entire Thanksgiving meal! Lindsey was fascinated with him, it was funny to watch her with him.

Kyle did dishes after the big meal! I helped him, but he definitely earned some points by doing this. haha! He thought it was dumb to take his picture doing dishes because he says he does them a lot. (I don't know about a lot, but yes he does them. :))

Lindsey Lou Who got her first haircut by Sara over the weekend. She was such a good girl and sat still- well good for a 15 mo old.

The after shot...side profile shot...I won't look at mommy shot. Now she looks a little more grown up.

We got back from Thanksgiving and this week Lindsey and Preston both have been sick. It's been lovely. Poor kiddos.

Lindseyisms

Lindsey wanted to wear Preston's helmet and she left it on for a long time. I took it off and she wanted it back on! And she's getting into her favorite thing...markers! I should move them up higher, but I usually just put the gate up so she can't get into the office.

Lindsey likes playing with Elmo and I thought it was cute she was hugging it.

She's pushing the buttons to make it do and say things.

Oh, all done! Bye bye Elmo!

She's 15 mo's old and saying a few words now like "ha" for hi, "uh oh" and she likes to drop stuff so she can say that- fun game, she asks for "more" and "milk" using sign language. She folds her arms and jabbers like she's saying a prayer and she likes to dance. Put some music on and she's dancin'. She climbs onto chairs and the table. She was scooting the stool over to where I was making some cookies and I thought "aren't you too young to be doing that now?!" Yikes! She's finally getting her 1 yr molars in on the top. She loves books and will bring a book to us constantly for us to read it, but when she's done with sitting there she'll take it out of your hands and walk away. And she's gotten squealing down pretty good when she wants something. :) We love having her in our family. She's so fun to watch and her smile is contagious.

After Party and First Assembly

My Mom came over after Halloween and did a Halloween party for Kate and we invited some of the neighbors over. We played bean bag monster man, stick the wart on the witch's nose, Frankenstein walk and eyeball toss.

My Mom made orange play-do for the kids and made it look like little pumpkins. Cute. Thanks Mom for coming over!

Kate sang "The Grand Ole Flag" at school in their Veteran's Day assembly. She is in the middle of the (dark, horrible) picture holding the white paper. I didn't know that song and with Kate singing it over and over I know (most of it) now.

Kate was shy and didn't want me to take her picture. She was never shy before so this must be a new phase. :) They honored the people that were serving or have served that were in the audience and it was a good assembly. Makes me proud to be an American!

Out of the Mouth of Kids

The other day Kate told us we need a bigger house. One with 5 bedrooms so she doesn't have to share a bedroom with Lindsey. (I wish!) Well, last night I was telling her that we will move someday to a bigger house and she got all sad and started crying and said she likes this house and she doesn't want to move. Can't win! :)

Yesterday, we were driving through a school zone and Preston told me to go faster. I told him we couldn't because we were driving by a school and there might be kids walking. He said, "it's so annoying!" he kept saying it over and over. haha. He also tells us now that we are mean and we are rude if we make him do something he doesn't want to do. It makes us laugh. His vocabulary is growing so we think it's funny when he says these things.