SLEDDING!

To go along with our picture perfect Christmas, we took Lucy and Wyatt sledding on a picture perfect morning a few days later.  We found a great hill close by, got a sitter for Penelope, and had a blast sledding for an hour or so.  The snow was perfect, and ours were the only footsteps around.  We had the whole place to ourselves for as far as we could see.  It was sweet!

The kids both preferred the inner tube over the green sled.  Especially after they wiped out on it when we sent them both down together.  It was not our greatest parenting moment ever, but we only let it happen once, I swear.

The sweetest ride was this little guy that we borrowed from our neighbor.  It's called a zipfy, and ours is officially on it's way from Amazon.  It was so much fun!  Spencer had to try several times to beat my record, but he finally did it just before we headed for home.

Hopefully we'll get a chance to go again.  I've got a record to beat...

Merry Christmas!

Our tree first thing in the morning.

 

I was the first one up at 7:30.  I snuck out to the kitchen to get the cinnamon rolls set out, and when I headed back to the bedrooms, Lucy and Wyatt were just waking up.  Once they realized it was light outside and that Santa had come, they jumped right out of bed.  I told them to snuggle with Daddy while I took a quick shower, then we had to wait a little longer for Grandma and Grandpa to come over, then it was finally time for the fun to begin!

Three excited kiddos!

 First up was the stocking inspection.  Lucy and Wyatt both found their favorite gum, along with some pioneer games, candy, and a skid steer for Wyatt and some make up for Lucy.

 Little Miss Sweet Pea got her first baby doll and some rattles in her stocking.

 We opened a few presents (legos for the kids, I think) and had fun playing with them for a while before we paused for breakfast.  Lucy had been DYING to open her Santa present as soon as she spotted it, but we made her wait till everyone finished eating.  It was just what she thought it would be: Rapunzel.  One happy girl.  And one happy Momma that Santa brought her instead of a kitty. :)

Wyatt's gift from Santa was a big garbage truck.  It's pretty sweet and we all have fun playing garbage man with it.

Santa brought Penelope a Sophie giraffe.  She loves to chew on her.

 Here is Lucy showing off one of her new matching dolly and me outfits,

and Wyatt modeling his superhero dress ups.  It's high time we got some boy dress ups around here.  He was thrilled.

It took us about three hours to open all of our presents.  We just took it nice and slow and enjoyed playing with each new present as we opened them.  It about killed Lucy, but she survived it.  We somehow managed to pull off naps for everyone that afternoon, then drove out to Spencer's family's for an early dinner and more presents (Spencer's mom made each of the grandkids a quillow...super cute), then to my family's for the lighting of the candles on the Christmas tree.  Almost burned it this year, but not quite.  We let the kids sleep out under the Christmas tree, and I found them like this at 4 am after feeding Penelope:

It was a perfect Christmas.  This will be a hard one to top with all the snow we got and all the good times we had.  Now we are having fun just being together and hanging out.  Love this time of year!

'Twas the Night Before Christmas...

The kids woke up full of excitement on Christmas Eve morning, and it still hasn't worn off three days later... We had planned on going to see the elves at Gardner Village that afternoon, but it started snowing like crazy right before lunch, which we were all thrilled about!  We had lunch at Jim's Family Restaurant with Alex and his kids, then braved the blizzard to Gardner Village after all so the kids could choose a gift for each other.  Once we got home, Spencer ditched us (like he always does on Christmas Eve, no matter how many times I beg him not to!) to do some last minute shopping.  The kids and I wrapped up the last of our gifts and watched some Christmas shows and read some Christmas books and listened to some Christmas music all while watching the snow come down outside.  Once Daddy got home, it was FINALLY time to go to Grandma's for our Christmas Eve dinner with all the family.  It was excellent as usual, and was followed by the traditional acting out of the Nativity.  Wyatt didn't want to participate (again), but once I showed him how his wise man costume looked like a superhero cape, he was game.

 Lucy asked to be Mary again, and Drew was Joseph again.  I think this picture is so sweet.  By the way, the "stable" was handmade by Claire and Lucy.  It's got some nice features, don't you think?

 When the wise men came out, Wyatt was told to go take his present to baby Jesus.  He said, "I have to hide it behind my back so baby Jesus doesn't see it."  Cutie.

 Here is the whole gang, I think.  Joseph had a bit of a flatulence problem this year, so it wasn't our most reverent portrayal ever.

 Next we played our candy bar game,

 then opened books from Grandma and Grandpa.  The grown ups exchanged presents and Mom and Dad gifted everyone with tickets to go see Les Mis at Pioneer Theater in May.  Sweet!

 Once we got home, we jammied up, threw out our reindeer food on the freshly fallen snow (we got about 5 inches!),

 read a Christmas story,

 and set out cookies and eggnog for Santa.  If you look closely, you can see our elf Elliott hiding in the fireplace waiting for Santa to come take him home.

The kids took a while to settle down and fall asleep, and Spencer took forEVER wrapping presents downstairs (seriously, I think it took him almost two hours to wrap 8 presents!), so I had plenty of time by myself to clean the kitchen and twiddle my thumbs since Spencer wouldn't let me get anything ready for Santa without him.  He finally came up at about 11:30, we worked our magic, and got to bed just after midnight.  Ho ho ho!

Cultured.

Lucy and I were lucky enough to go to the Nutcracker downtown on Friday.  I bought us some not-so-great seats to save a little money, hoping that by going to matinee performance we would be able to scoot up when the ballet began.  And it worked!  We sat on row Q in $69 seats that we paid less than half for.  Brilliant, right?  Lucy was so so excited when she woke up and learned that we were FINALLY going to the Nutcracker.  She loved getting all dolled up again and didn't even complain when I fixed her hair.  We picked up my mom and then Spencer chauffeured us down to Capitol Theater.  I quickly nursed Penelope and she headed off with daddy and Wyatt.  It all worked out splendidly.

 The ballet was fantastic, as always.  Lucy sat spellbound through the whole thing, although she was a little curious as to whether or not the male dancers had underwear on under their tights... I told her not to look so closely.  (!!!)  After the show Lucy found some little friends to dance with while we waited for out ride to pick us up.  She's been dancing ever since.

On the next day we took the kids downtown again (this is three days in a ROW people!) to go to the symphony at Abravanel hall.  They did a fun little Christmas program for the kids and I loved giving them that experience.  We need to do it more often.  Lucy had been to the Halloween symphony a couple years ago, but this was Wyatt's first time.  And Penelope's too.  They all did great and loved the performance--especially when Santa took a turn as the conductor!

 It was such a nice day that we decided to join the crowds at the mall again.  It was fun to be out and about and all three kids were amazingly good the whole day.

 If only they'd be that good when it's bedtime...

Cookies and Lights

On Monday we tackled our biggest, most dreaded holiday tradition...the cookies!  Lucy and Wyatt were super helpful this year and helped me cut out ALL of the cookies.  Even Penelope was in on the action!

After our pizza dinner, we pulled out all of our sprinkles, whipped up some frosting, and decorated our little hearts out.  My mom came over and helped with her one hand (she just had surgery on her right hand, so she was not only one handed but LEFT handed at that...and she still put out some amazing cookies!), and grandpa stopped by too and decorated two cookies that he ate.  Thanks dad. :)

 These are seriously the best cookies ever.  We make a triple batch every year and freeze them so they last us a long time.  Love them!

We went downtown on Thursday night with Seth and Manina and their kids and Lisa and Ava to see the lights at temple square.  We started out with a quick dinner at the food court at the mall (yum yum!), the headed out to see the lights.  It was a chilly night, but every seemed to have enough layers on to keep warm.  Aren't all those kids so cute all bundled up?   It was a good night to go because it wasn't super packed like it is on other nights.  The kids enjoyed the extra space to run around and be crazy.

Grandma and Grandpa met up with us on the other side of temple square and walked back with us to the new city creek mall where we saw the Macy's Christmas window displays and watched the dancing fountains.

We left about an hour later than we should have and all the kids in our car were falling apart, but we made it home safe and sound and slept like babies that night!

December Stuff

I took the kids to the mall to see Santa early in December before the lines got crazy long.  A brilliant move--we didn't have to wait at all!  Last year I didn't love the Santa at the mall because he kept asking Lucy and Wyatt what ELSE they wanted for Christmas, even going to far as to make suggestions!  This year he did the same dang thing!  Lucy and Wyatt know that Santa will bring them ONE present and the rest are from mom and dad.  So they were prepared to ask for the one thing they wanted, but stinkin' Santa kept asking them what else they wanted!  He convinced Wyatt that he wanted not just a truck, but a monster truck, then told him he would bring him a dinosaur (a T-rex...Wyatt is not at all into dinosaurs right now), and even said he would bring him a surprise since Wyatt couldn't think of anything else.  I had finally talked Lucy out of asking for a kitty, and she politely asked Santa for the Rapunzel doll she wants.  "What else?" he said.  She thought for a while and asked for a fancy Barbie.  "What else?" he said.  She glances at me and asks Santa for a real kitty!!  I could have strangled him.  So annoying.  We will not be visiting him again next year.  Seriously, who trained that Santa anyway, right?!

On a completely different note, this little sweetheart is now five months old.  I just cannot believe she is already that old.  Her little babyhood is just whizzing by and it's killing me!  Penelope is still so so sweet.  I just wish I could bottle her up and set her on a shelf to open in another 13 years when she's probably not so sweet anymore.

 Saturday was Spencer's birthday.  It's been so fun this year because Lucy has been SO involved and excited for everyone's birthdays.  Daddy's was no exception.  She chose to give him his favorite cereal, and I love the look on her little face in this photo.

 We did our traditional McDonald's breakfast for Spencer's birthday, delivered our Christmas neighbor gifts, and then went to Lucy's big dance recital.  She looked so pretty and grown up in her outfit with her hair and makeup done.

 We had to be there an hour early.  These two did great sitting and waiting and sat through the whole performance of Snow White quite well.

 Lucy was all about getting a flower after her performance.  I tried to convince her that it would be much more fun to go get a fancy ice cream or something, but she was quite insistent that she preferred a flower.  "That means I did a good job, Mommy!" she explained.  Well, she did do a great job and we were so proud of her.  She really is turning into quite a good little ballerina.  We are looking forward to going to see the Nutcracker soon!

...and there was ice cream afterward too anyway.  

We just couldn't resist.

Joy School Nativity

Last week was our big end-of-the-year Joy School "service project" where we take the kids to a senior center and perform a few songs and reenact the nativity for the grandmas and grandpas.  Things are always more than a little iffy the couple of times they practice before we go, but somehow it all manages to pull together.  The kids did a great job this year--I think it was our best show so far. :)  Wyatt got to be the angel, and tried hard to play his role but kept getting distracted by a tiny little hangnail he kept picking at.  He was still precious.  And Lucy got to tag along and helped by playing the part of the shepherd and singing the songs too.  They were all so cute and the grandmas and grandpas loved them.  The kids had made cards to pass out, which were all very well received as well.

Later that same day, we gathered again with the dads and siblings for our annual Christmas party.  We started out with a pizza dinner, and then the kids put on their show again, with the addition of some of our Joy School alumni.  You would think that this would have been a much better performance, but not so.  It was all a little chaotic.  I think everyone had had a little too much lemonade by this point... Lucy played Mary this time and Wyatt was a shepherd.

Penelope enjoyed the show, no matter how crazy it got.

After their performance, the four joy schoolers exchanged presents.  It took Wyatt forEVER to sit down and open his.  He carried it around with him for the longest time before he decided to see what was in it.  Funny kid.

Matchy-Matchy

New jammies and new church clothes.  

Matching, of course.

I wonder how long they'll let me do this?!  

Hopefully forever.  

It's so dang cute.