Merry Christmas!

Christmas is so much fun with kids! I have carried on the tradition of having the kids get new pj's that they get to open on Christmas Eve. Brady added to the tradition this year by getting them slippers too!
Isabel with her zebra feet, and Ben with his Bear feet! They hurried and put these on , and then went outside to sprinkle reindeer food on the lawn. We had some from when the kids saw the reindeer up at Weber State, and Isabel had some that she got to make at school! They made sure to leave Santa some chocolate milk and pao de queijo!
I thought that our tree was really cute this year. It had red, white and green lights and I loved the addition of the dangling icicles. Best part is, they are plastic! We had to watch Ben, cause he liked to 'fix' the lights by puling them out. He is such a good helper.
The kids actually ate breakfast (pancakes with red and green mini vanilla chips in them) before they went to see what Santa brought them! Ben got up at 6, and luckily, Curious George Christmas special was on so I slept while he laid by me and watched it!
The only thing that Isabel told Santa that she wanted, and the thing that she put on her list, was a candy cane! She was very excited to find this sticking out of her stocking!
Ben loved his mini tractors. He was funny cause he had to stop and examine everything that he got. Funny thing was, Santa actually called the kids this year! Santa told Ben that if he was a good boy, Santa would leave him some underwear.....first thing that Ben picked to open was new Buzz Lightyear underwear.....He looked at it and said, "santa!".
Isabel was extremely excited to get some new make-up! She likes to do it herself and put all the lip care products on at once too! She sure looks beautiful when she does!
These were mommy's favorite toy the kids got. They have been keeping the kids entertained for hours on end. You can decorate cupcakes with frosting (dry erase marker), they are wooden too, and there is a knife in the Ben's so he can cut his fruit into pieces. Ben loved the cupcakes and would walk around singing happy birthday! Isabel was a fan of cutting fruit! Santa brought dad a wooden sushi set, that has sushi rolls that can be cut apart. Pretty awesome if I do say so myself!
This is Ben and Isabel helping Dad open the present they got him.
As soon as they opened it, they threw them at him! They picked round fluffy pillows (3 of them) so that they could pillow fight daddy! Fun idea I thought!
I was crafty this year, and thought I should make the kids something. I used 8 1/2 x 11" pieces of felt and sewed them together. Each kid got 4 pieces of a town. There was a zoo, temple, hospital, target :), duck pond, apple orchard, swimming pool, beach, houses etc. I had to make sure to get a picture of them playing with them. They are good to take to church, or on airplanes :)
We then took the kids down to the playroom. Ben was in shock when he saw the new train table. He loves it! His exact words were, "oh wow! what is it?"
Isabel informed me that she doesn't play with trains, but she has been down there everyday with Ben playing :)
Isabel saw a snuggie at the store and asked me what it was. I told her that it was a blanket with sleeves, and she thought it was neat. Grandma Tracie got both Isabel and Ben one. Isabel loves hers. Ben thinks his is too confining. (think straight jacket!) I am amazed at how thin the material is.
Isabel also got a crown with earrings and dress up shoes. She walks around telling Ben to tell her that she is a 'pretty princess'. Oddly enough, Ben tells her. It's funny. She has him wrapped around her little finger. We will see how long that lasts!
Ben got tools for Christmas from the Yamashita's. After an unfortunate incident earlier this month where he was 'fixing' the handles on the kitchen drawers, I asked Tracie to take back the real metal ones that she bought him and get him plastic ones. It's a good thing she did cause he has been walking around the house with his plastic hammer, 'fixing things'! It was a great Christmas!

Christmas Eve

The Christmas Eve tradition we have in my family is to act out the Christmas story. This tradition started with me and my brothers acting it out as kids, and now we have the grandkids act it out. After dinner (mini pizzas cut out like Christmas trees that they could decorate), we turned on Skype (s0 grandma and granda Morgan could participate this year) and had the kids act it out for them. Here they are saying hi to grandma and papa! (I love this picture!)
Anyone who knows Ben knows that he is super active all of the time. He is always jumping, hopping, and running everywhere! Before we started the program, I looked back and saw Ben holding baby Jesus in the manger. He took his part as shepherd very seriously.
Adam and Ari were the wisemen, Noah was Joseph, Isabel was Mary, Sam and Ben were shepherds, and Sarah and Nara were angels. (they kept crawling and running out of the pictures!) I wrote a program that had all primary songs in it. We made the kids a jingle bell bracelet and they shook them for the song Christmas Bells are Ringing. The kids sang really well!
We added a shepherd (Ben) to this picture!
And this is the best picture I got with all the kids in it! It's not the best manger scene, but we had limited work area so mom and dad could see it! I love this tradition!

How do you get presents under the tree?

Isn't he cute!

The first time I tried to get Ben to wear church clothes, long sleeve white shirt and dress pants, he screamed, hyperventilated, and pulled at the clothes until I gave in and took them off of him. When I got out of the shower on Sunday, I looked over at Ben, and Brady had gotten him dressed in this! He didn't cry, scream, and I think he actually liked wearing it! Hooray! He looked so cute. Down to the "cars" shoes he was wearing with it!

Mommy Field Trip

Isabel's preschool teacher posted an activity on her blog last week. She let us know that Santa and some of his reindeer were coming to Weber State! Ben and Isabel were excited! I called Kandi, Tamina, and Jen to see if they wanted to join us. Jen wasn't able to come, but the others were! This is the best group shot I got of Isabel, Ben and Zoey. It was hard to Ben to not look at the reindeer. (Isabel kept saying that the reindeer were trying to eat her!)
Santa brought 2 reindeer with him; Snowflake and Blitzen. There were helpers outside the fence that gave the kids reindeer food, to sprinkle on the lawn so Santa would know where to land. (Such a cute idea!) The kids got green sparkly food!
After we saw the reindeer, we went inside to get pictures with Santa. They had this cute Grinch layout. The kids liked poking their heads out! This is Ben, Isabel, and Zoey.
We tried to take another picture with Tamina's kids......tried is a good word. I didn't get one picture where all of their heads were out! Still cute though. If I messed with photoshop, I could get a good one!
The line to see Santa wasn't long at all. We got there just in time! The only way Zoey would get up there was to have Kandi with her! Ben stood for this picture, but for individual pictures, he wouldn't do it. He sat on his bum, and scooted towards Santa. Santa help out a candy cane for Ben and motioned with his hand for Ben to come get it. Ben would just scoot on his bum a little closer. Finally Ben got all the way to Santa's feet. Santa reached to give Ben the candy cane and Ben couldn't reach it. Ben then motioned with his hand for Santa to bend down further to give him the candy. Santa said, "little boy, Santa can't bend over that far!" Ben finally reached up and got it from him. What a character. I really liked this Santa. He did a good job!
We managed to get a relatively good picture of all of the kids with Santa. Even Sam got to sit on Santa's lap! So cute! After pictures, we went upstairs to make a craft. They made a santa ornament for the tree, and a picture fame magnet for the fridge. Ben was definitely done after one craft! They turned out good though!
As soon as we walked out the doors of the bookstore, the kids saw the hill and ran over to it. They ran on it, rolled down it and just enjoyed themselves!
Isabel informed me that mommy field trips were way better than the school ones! Best part about this field trip, is that it was free! Hooray for free activities!

School Field Trip (Ogden Christmas Village)

We got to go with Isabel on her class field trip to the Ogden Christmas Village. We got to take Ari with us, and Tamina met us there after she picked up Adam from school. Above is a class picture with Ms Angela and Mrs Claus.
It was a pretty chilly day, but we were glad we had the 11:00 time to go instead of the 9:00am one. That would have been REALLY cold!
Aren't Isabel and Ari so cute! They love to pose for pictures!
They made sure that I took this picture, because it was the nutcracker house, and Grandpa Morgan loves nutcrackers! They wanted you to know that they looked at them there!
They were excited that they were as tall as the gingerbread men. (Ben wouldn't look and smile)
Isn't it so fun how they get along great with each other. This made me laugh, Isabel was hugging Ari while they were looking in the window!
Walking in the snow to get to the next house. (And yes, there was a sidewalk, but they wanted to walk in the snow!)
Mrs Clause gave them the tour. She explained about each house and even told stories. The one that we heard was Hansel and Gretel.
Isabel wasn't impressed with the tour. She was bored about 1/3 of the way through. She made sure to tell me that she didn't like this field trip either. And then, she got to sit on Mrs Clause's lap. That made it a little bit better. They got a sugar cookie and a bag of goodies. (There was a bendable elf inside, and she and Ben loved theirs!)
Ben wouldn't sit on her lap, but at least he would stand by her! Still no smiling!
Isabel was extremely excited to sit on Mrs Clause's lap! You can tell!
Here is Ari and Mrs Clause. So cute!
And check out Adam's smile! He was really excited to see her too!
The kids all sat down outside after to each some of their treats. Notice I didn't have a picture of Sarah with Mrs Clause....that's because she wanted nothing to do with her! This picture is cute of her though. If you look close you can see her saying 'cheese"! It was an ok field trip. I know Isabel would have liked it better if it was at night and all the lights were on. Oh well, at least she got to spend time with her cousins and mom!

Festival of the Trees....Sam's Tree

My mother-in-law, Tracie, has been helping the Sunset Jr High cheerleaders do a tree for the Festival of the Trees for the past few years, and last year she asked me and Kandi and Krystle (my sisters-in-law) if we would like to do a family tree this year. We decided that it would be fun, so we got a tree ready. We picked the theme 'A Family Christmas', and went from there. Here is what the tree looked like. ( I found it hard to get a good picture becuase of the lights from all of the other trees, and I'm not a professional photographer :))
There were Santa heads, nativitys, stockings, jingle bells, pointsettas, shiny red leaves, and lots of ornaments that looked like ones you would find on a family Christmas tree. It looked a little 'country-ish'. We actually did a set-up to go with it. A rocking chair with blanket and pillow, a fireplace with stockings, a fischer price nativity scene, fake presents ;) and a treasure chest filled with Christmas books.

Here is a close-up of the fireplace. I thought it was cool because if you just wanted the effect of the fire but with no heat, you could do it. If you look closely at the tree you can see red jingle bell garland. I loved it. It is on top of the fireplace too.

Here is a close-up of under the tree. The tree skirt, nativity and treasure box filled with books. The kids loved helping me find all of the books. Ben loved playing with the nativity, just like he does at home.

Tracie asked if we knew anyone at Primary Children's hopsital to whom we could dedicate the tree to. I didn't know anyone, and then Tamina had Sam and he had to be there for 3 weeks, so we dedicated the tree to him. We had a cute collage of pictures and his story there at the front of the display. If you look at the 2nd picture of the post, you can kind-of see the easel with his picture in it. We had fun making the tree. We might even brave making one for next year. It is for a good cause :) This was one of the kids favorite trees there. It said 'Maui Christmas!' They definitely get points for creativity!